By Justin Laurion
It’s hard to believe that an entire year has flown by, and I’m told they will continue to speed up. As I look back on the past year in my gardening journey, I’m grateful for the lessons learned and the progress made. While we’re still far from achieving the lush landscape I envision, it has undoubtedly been a year of baby steps forward—a marked improvement from our slow crawls of 2023.
Small Victories & Second Chances
It mostly started with a trunk full of plants I bought at the 2023 GCW Plant Sale. These “shame plants”, as I came to call them, spent the summer looking lovely in their pots but most never made it into the ground. When winter came, they found their way into the garage, where I assumed many would meet an unfortunate end. To my delight, every single one of those plants sprouted again in the spring, relieving me of my guilt as a Hosta-killer, and giving us a second chance to get them planted.
Another small victory was that the few things we did manage to plant in 2023, namely forsythias and rhododendrons, greeted me with encouraging blooms. And our once mowed-over butterfly bush returned with a vengeance to do its job. All reminders that even small efforts in the garden can return to repay us in dividends.
The Big Picture: Creating a Roadside Screen
A main goal since moving in has been to plant a screen along the main road. This project is meant to serve two purposes: to provide our front yard with more privacy and to create a border that would redefine the roadside drainage ditch as no longer lawn that requires mowing. The ditch is one of the more annoying areas to maintain, with its steep slope and proximity to the road. Mowing it requires riding right up to the edge of the road (sometimes into it), which doesn’t feel particularly safe.
Although we’re nowhere near finishing this project, we did make progress in other areas. One of the biggest breakthroughs came when we learned a new method for planting new beds, thanks to a Canny’s Corner article titled Mentees "Mentor" the Mentor. With our blue clay soil just beneath the turf, planting always took much more time and effort than anticipated. This no-dig method allowed us to lay down an entire bed in the time it previously took to plant a single shrub.
Mentorship and New Ideas
This year, we were fortunate to have Canny Cahn visit us as a mentor. I was half-expecting her to dissuade me from what felt like a crazy idea of creating a “fake stream” at the bottom of our ditch-that-shall-not-be-mowed. Instead, she provided me with homework to research the term “dry creek bed” and provided loads of encouragement and ideas for what to plant down the slope between the shrub privacy screen and my dreamed-up faux brook.
Her visit gave us the confidence to move forward with creative landscaping ideas. I highly recommend signing up as a mentoree if you’re feeling a little lost, or volunteering to mentor if you have some knowledge to share.
Successes and Challenges
Our biggest success this year was getting all of our miraculously resurrected GCW Plant Sale plants planted into new beds at the base of each tree in our yard. It was a relief to finally give those plants a home in the soil, where they can hopefully thrive. Also, I'm happy to have convinced a family of bluebirds to nest in a birdhouse I set out for them, but I'll save that story for another time.
However, our biggest challenge came from our unfinished roadside screen project. Not only do we still need to mow the slope and ditch, but we now have obstacles—seemingly randomly dispersed shrubs—that require careful mowing around and additional weed-whacking! This has added to the maintenance burden, making it clear that we must finish the screen and transition to a more sustainable, low-maintenance solution.
Looking Ahead to 2025
Although I now have a much better sense of how ambitious our goals are, I’m excited for what’s to come. In 2025, I hope we can add the remaining shrubs and trees to complete the privacy screen, install a dry creek bed at the base of the ditch, and replace the grass on the slope with lupines and other no-hassle flowering plants. This, along with my dreams of owning a few Asian pear trees, will not only beautify the space but also reduce the need for constant mowing and maintenance.
Reflecting on this past year, I’m reminded that gardening is a journey of patience and persistence. Progress may come in baby steps, but each small achievement brings us closer to creating a space that we can enjoy for years to come.
What garden victories, big or small, do you have to celebrate from this past year?
Wow Justin!!! You are unbelievably gifted in designing and writing newsletters 👍❣️ Especially loved this article on the challenges of your home landscaping and the amazing resurrection of hostas and other plants—a thousand kudos 👌!!!!