need sympathy: leaving my garden behind

17 years ago

Please comiserate with me :(

While I'm super-excited to be moving this month into a new home in a much better neighborhood, I am going to miss my garden like mad. After five years here, it's just now hitting its stride. The new place is JUST GRASS right now.

I look forward to the new project - while a cottage garden is never really "finished", my ideas for this "old" place have sort of run out and I'm mostly moving stuff around now. But leaving this behind is just sad.

I put "some perennials" as exclusions on the sales contract for the house and have moved pieces of my favourites (becky, lorraine sunshine, some rare hostas, bugbane etc) to friends' places until I can get settled. But of course that's just a drop in the bucket. (and WHAT is with the price of bugbane (brunette), anyway??? $22 for a 6-inch pot!)

But I digress... :) This morning I saw my butterfly delphinium in bloom, right next to a glorious patch of coreopsis baby sun. Both easily replaced, but what a show at their height of maturity!

And the foot-long stick of a butterfly weed tuber that I planted 3 years ago has finally come out in all its glory (see below).

I planted that little tree (little leaf linden) on Earth Day two years ago. I'll miss it, but not the weedy driveway ("cosmetic" herbicides are now illegal in this town, yay!!)

I have the feeling I'll be spending a lot of time in the "cottage garden" and "shade garden" forums in the next few months. I guess on the upside, I won't be repeating the mistakes I made with this garden. Famous last words...

Comments (18)

jiggreen
17 years ago
oh you do have my sympathies!! from what i can see in the picture it shows that a lot of time, effort and love went into your current garden. don't think of all that you'll be leaving, instead think of all that you'll be gaining. you can try out new plants that you had run out of room for, you have new hardscape possibilities. you'll be taking a blah empty landscape and turning it into another oasis of beauty! you can be like johnny appleseed, but instead of planting appletrees you will be creating new gardens in new places! you're leaving a lovely garden, hopefully the new owners will tend to it as beautifully as you have!

:) jiggreen
lynnencfan
17 years ago
Chris - I can really feel for ya. I left a garden of 35 years that really came into its own after we became empty nesters. I hated like anything to leave but looked forward to the challenges of a new space and MORE space. We moved from the proverbial postage stamp developement yard to an acre and 1/3 and I have never regretted it. I have my pictures and memories and I hope that the people who moved in enjoyed the results of my labor :)

Good luck with you move and enjoy the new challenges......

Lynne
Related Discussions
My garden is so far behind
Q
Comments (39)
Ok, Jon! OK OK OK. I'm not grumpy, seriously. Just confused here. Just sayin'. I'm in need of routine. What you do is outrageously kind and you have my deepest respect. To think that I thought I may have something to donate to our food bank here---it's laughable now. I'll keep trying, because I'm more stubborn than grumpy, but I definitely need something to work with. I ripped out half of my backyard, including lawn. I moved TEN yards of compost and garden soil from my driveway around the back gate and around another corner and distributed all of this into 14 raised 4x8 beds. And then I moved more of the soil into my used-to-be flower beds so I could plant rambling items there, like winter squash. I'm a tough chick but smallish. But I was serious, man. I've planted 9 fruit trees and have 5 potted figs, a lemon tree, 12 blueberry plants, 4 grapes, six thornless blackberries and a bunch of other stuff I'm forgetting. None of this includes the vegetables, asparagus bed, sweet potato patch (purple of course), and the Partridge in the Pear Tree. I compost, I collect my rabbit's 'berries' and distribute them, I chop leaves from my yard and chip mulch from my prunings. I have 7 ducks and a chicken. I have 3 boys who have no interest in this but I still do it. Oh, I also live in the 'burbs in a normal house on less than a quarter acre and I am absolutely NOT allowed to touch the front yard but imagine their suprise when I secretly plant the six artichoke plants I have been nursing from seed since December of last year. I WANT SOME TOMATOES, YA KNOW? A couple squash, a bean, whatever... :) Whine. Whine. Whine. Angie
...See More
Fall leaves in my garden, can I leave them there like a mulch?
Q
Comments (5)
The leaves that fall from the trees growing in my yard get mulch mowed back into the soil they came from to feed the soil the trees are growing in. I pick up leaves on excursions to town to shred for mulching my planting beds and to make compost. As justaguy indicated whole leaves tend to matt together and make a somewhat impervious barrier to plant growth and if possible you should shred those leaves some way. A rotary mower is a fairly good machine to use for that if some simple precautions are taken first. You do need a fairly solid stand for the mower, blocks ot keep the mower from moving without interfering with raking the leaves under the mower deck. A means of catching the leaves as the mower mulches them, a cage of some kind, or a bag on the mower so you can pick them up as you mow so you need not rake them.
...See More
I need sympathy! :(
Q
Comments (7)
Wow!!! That's a bummer!!! I guess I am lucky, then. We had frost 2 nights in a row this past week. I left all my containers outside, fully open...except for 4 containers, 1 with cucumbers growing, 2 with amaranth and 1 with another tender plant, which I put in my unheated garage. As far as I can tell I didn't lose anything...we had frost on the cars and temps around 28 degrees. My game plan next year is to segregate the hardy plants from the tenders, and, when I do several varieties in one container, make sure they are all tender or all hardy. This way I'll know which containers to bring into the garage once sprouts appear. This year I planted nearly all frost hardy plants and that worked well as all I had to do is open containers up some on hot days and make sure the containers stayed nicely watered. Now that nearly all my containers are open allt he way though, I have to water much more as they dry out faster.
...See More
I need so much help with my (organic) garden in Lakeland!
Q
Comments (9)
Hi and welcome! First of all, we've *all* had a first garden. Gardening is a labor of love. Like relationships with people, in your garden you'll have good times and tough times. If you watch and learn from your plants, you'll have more good times. :-) One of the beauties of gardening is that you never stop learning. There are lots of gardeners who know far more than I do, and even they are still learning. So never be embarrassed to ask for advice! One thing that most every new gardener has to learn is to plan for the mature size of the plants. It's hard to imagine a tiny seed growing into a plant taller than you or a vine 15' long in one growing season, but it happens! 3. Tangerine Pimiento Sweet Pepper - Yes, you should thin them now to a 12" minimum spacing. They won't be able to produce peppers while they are competing with each other for water, sun, and nutrients. Don't pull since they are so close together - you might damage the roots of the plants you want to keep. Instead, thin by snipping off the stems of unwanted plants just above the ground. Keep the biggest and healthiest-looking plants. 4. Tomatoes - You should thin these, too. Tomatoes need at least 2'-3' between them, because if they are healthy, most types will grow into BIG plants. You also need to figure out what you're going to do about support (stakes, cages, trellis), or if you're going to let them sprawl. If you're going to let them sprawl, they need even more ground space. If you are going to use supports, you should install them as soon as you can after thinning the tomatoes. Pinching early tomato flowers is one of those things gardeners argue about. Most commonly, the advice is that you should pinch flowers off small plants that are still in cell packs or small pots; once the plants are settled in the ground (or a large container) you don't need to pinch any more. Since yours are in the ground and several inches tall, I don't think you need to pinch. 11. - 15. Heirloom tomatoes & peppers: Sounds like a nice selection! See above for spacing. If your heirloom tomatoes are planted too close together, now is the time to move them. Tomatoes tolerate transplanting well, especially if you bury them deeper when you transplant. Earthboxes or other self-watering containers are especially good for peppers. If peppers undergo water stress they make fewer and smaller fruit; self-watering containers keep a constant moisture level. (Large sweet peppers are pickier than small, hot types.) If you use an Earthbox, four to six - no more than six - peppers per Earthbox work beautifully. 4-6 little pepper plants may look lost in an Earthbox now, but they will fill it completely in a couple of months, trust me. If your heirloom peppers are too close, maybe you could get another Earthbox or other SWC for some of them? 19. Weeds: Unfortunately, you will need to keep up with the weeds. They are small now, but they'll overrun your garden later and out-compete your vegetables for sunlight, water, and nutrients. You can pull or hoe the weeds - be careful with the hoe around your veggies, but a hoe is definitely much faster than hand-pulling for clearing paths between rows. I do everything possible to avoid weeding, because it is my least-favorite garden activity (especially in July and August!). A deep mulch around your veggies is the way to go. Many weed seeds need light to sprout, and a thick layer of mulch blocks the light. It also holds in moisture so you don't have to water so much. Even with a thick mulch, you'll need to weed some, but the mulch will make a huge difference. Mulch also helps keep dirt from splashing onto the plants, which is important for tomatoes and melons. The most troublesome weeds are grasses and other weeds that spread underground or resprout from the root, because they will come right up through the mulch. Your best option is pulling them immediately, every time they resprout. If you are diligent, you can eventually exhaust them. (They have to expend energy to resprout; if you pull them before they have time to recover that energy from the sun, eventually they get too weak to sprout again.) For paths/walkways, put down several layers of newspaper or a layer of cardboard (e.g., old shipping boxes) and then mulch on top of that. The paper or cardboard is really hard for weeds to push through, and can block some - not all - of the grasses and root-spreading weeds, too. Don't put it right up to your veggies, though, because sheets of newspaper or cardboard block some of the rainfall. Good luck with your new garden!
...See More
debbieca
17 years ago
Chris, Your photos have been inspiring, both the loveliness of your backyard and your reclamation of the front, along with all the battles it took to get there. I wish you no critters eating the new garden : )
PattiOH
17 years ago
Hi Chris,
I'm sorry to hear that you are leaving your dear garden. It's so very hard, isn't it?

My situation is similar, in that I'm happy to be moving, but sad to leave my perennial flower-babies that have finally reached maturity and are so very beautiful. I have actually shed tears over this.
I had to smile when I read about 'Brunette'. I had three large ones, and they were the first things I dug and potted early this spring. They are now happily established at the new garden 600 miles away. I was a regular customer of the Box Store, shipping a couple hundred plants in April and May. I just couldn't bear to leave my perennials here. More than one person has told me I am CRAZY (none from Garden Web! haha!). The beds at the "old house" are still full of plants and I hope to dig most of them out this fall. Hope I have some energy left at that point!

Good luck with your move, I'm sure your new garden will be even more lovely than the old one with all you've learned!
A toast to new beginnings!
Patti
badtoad
17 years ago
(((hug))) I totally understand. I had to leave my old garden/house two years ago.

One word of advice, never, never, never look back. I hear from my former neighbors that the people who bought my house have wrecked the garden through neglect and paved parts of it over. This from people who exclaimed delight over it and said with complete sincerity that they were avid gardeners.
hydrangea89
17 years ago
It is very sad that you have to leave your old garden behind, but remember that you are getting a fresh start, someplace that you can plant your dream gardens. I wish you the best of luck and happy planting!
chris_ont
Original Author
17 years ago
Thanks, everyone, I just knew the folks here would understand.

You remember my reclamation project, Debbie? :) What a chore that was - and then I got: grubs, skunk digging up same grubs, crabgrass moving into the dug up areas, having to completely reseed north part of front yard. I think that's when I stopped posting my troubles to my web site :D

I think you might be right, Badtoad. The buyers of this place did indeed enthuse about the garden and (she) said that they can't wait to take it over. But she's a new gardener, too, and I hope she will be able to manage. Those weeds do have a way of getting away from you when you're not looking and then it could look a little overwhelming to a new gardener. But I'm sure I'm just fretting.

I look forward to starting a new "before and after" garden web site :)

Here is a link that might be useful: my
nberg7
17 years ago
Clinking glasses with Chris and Patti. I agree with the suggestion not to go back and take a peek at the old place- I've done that twice in my life and nearly got out and pounded on the door to ask why they'd screwed things up so much? ;-) Moving is an adventure, right? It always feels strange, yet wonderful- something new to learn about, a blank canvas that you can paint with your plantings galore.

Hugs Chris- can't wait to hear about the move and the new place..you too Patti!
-Nan
pat_tea
17 years ago
Chris; boy do I understand. I am crying in my perennials and wipping my tears with rose petals. I think the hard part is being in limbo. I know I will be fine when I can get started on the new garden. You will be too! Best of luck and your post made me feel like I'm not alone in my grief over my garden. Blessings, Patti
Steveningen
17 years ago
Here's to you Chris, and I raise my glass: Congratulations on being a good steward of the earth. You planted a garden. Some of it will last generations. Some of it will have bloomed its last. No matter. It's a patch of the planet that, for a fleeting moment, danced.

Be happy in your new home.

Steven
ntaylor_2006
17 years ago
Isn't it funny how those plants that struggled, sometimes for years, come into their own when the 'For Sale' sign goes up!! I too am trying to sell and move on. This year, for the first time, my 2 new (2 years ago) clematis are blooming; my poppy was filled with blooms; well, I could go on. Maybe they're giving me a send off, instead of begging me to stay.

Chris, good luck with your new garden!
girlsingardens
17 years ago
I feel for you. The house that we first owned and where I first started gardening at was sold a year after we moved, so I had the chance to get many of my plants. Funny thing is now that my gardens at the new house are 10 times as big as the old house. One thing that you could do would be take some cuttings of plants that root well or even take a bit of a start of others, they won't be missed. That way you will have a bit of the old gardens. I know that you have already moved some of the plants but a bit of a start of others won't be missed.

Stacie
Hollywog
17 years ago
I do feel for you!! We have no immediate plans of moving, and one of the things that would keep me here would be all of the work I've put into my gardens so far. I only started them last year, and I still have a ton of work to do, but I know how long it takes those plants to get established and start blooming their best. I've already told my husband that if and when we ever move, most of my perennials will go into the real estate contract as being part of my 'collection' (for after all, that is what they are to me--no different than another persons stamps or coins or baseball cards that they would take with them)and I will make it clear that they are going along with me whether it is a 10 mile move or a 1000 mile move!! It does make me cringe, however, to think of how long it might take them to re-establish themselves and really give me a show, though!!
But try to focus on how much fun it will be to start over--this time with a bit more knowlege of what to do and where to put it each plant to get the best performance out of it!!
mrmorton
17 years ago
I get so ridiculously sad just thinking about leaving my garden. But I KNOW that someday soon, this will have to happen. This home we live in now was our first home, our starter home. We have dreams and ambitions far beyond what can be achieved here. Sometimes I wonder why I have put so much into something that I will surely have to leave someday. Then I stroll through the gardens and know it is all worth it, even for a brief moment.
Good luck, and look forward to all the wonderful possibilities for your new garden.
fammsimm
17 years ago
You did it before, you can do it again. :-) I think your gardens are beautiful and I'm sure their appearance appeals to a multitude of potential buyers.

Just imagine all the knowledge you have now that you didn't have before! Most of us have to live with our mistakes, or spend an enormous amount of time or money to correct them. You have a blank canvas to work with.

I know its heart breaking to leave your present garden, but its also an opportunity to put into practice everything you've learned.

I don't know how many times I have said to myself, "If I had only known" or "I wish I had researched" before planting something. grrrrrrrrrrrr

Take a photograph of your current garden, and/or some small cuttings to bring to your new home to remind yourself of all the greatness you accomplished. :-)

Marilyn
buyorsell888
17 years ago
I feel your pain. I agree, don't drive by in the future.

You really should take divisions and cuttings and dig up beloved plants.

You would be shocked at how much you can remove without the new owners even noticing. I took 4 pick up loads from the house we rented and when I was done moving other plants over and spreading a light layer of mulch you could not tell.

I had some plants in pots for two years before getting beds ready for them. This house that we bought had no beds, just grass.

It can be done. Even fairly large shrubs can be moved, most have smaller rootballs than you'd think.

I got buckets and pots from my local supermarket floral department, I also got left over nursery pots from friends and relatives. I had help digging and we potted with the gardenn dirt topped off with bagged compost. Didn't spend money for potting soil.
Eliza_ann_ca
17 years ago
My heart goes out to you.i have done this before and was so sad to drive by my old garden and see it choked with weeds.But I picked myself up and started working on my present garden when we moved in 15 years ago and can hardly believe the difference when I look at pictures taken then.
We will be selling and downsizing in about three years,so i will have to start all over again.I will divide as many as I can,and try to avoid the mistakes that i made here,but I'm sure I will make new mistakes because it's all a part of the gardening experience.It's the doing and not always the end results that I think most gardeners love.Good luck in your new garden.I'm sure it will be just as beautiful as the one you now have.
greenthumbgardener
17 years ago
Chris,
After looking through all of your pictures, believe me, you will have absolutely no trouble putting together another wonderful garden. You should also get your brother to help you, because it looks like he has too much time on his hands. LOL!!
Seriously, all the best of luck on your new house and new garden.
Bill

need sympathy: leaving my garden behind

Comments (18)

jiggreen

lynnencfan

Related Discussions

debbieca

PattiOH

badtoad

hydrangea89

chris_ont
Original Author

nberg7

pat_tea

Steveningen

ntaylor_2006

girlsingardens

Hollywog

mrmorton

fammsimm

buyorsell888

Eliza_ann_ca

greenthumbgardener

COMPANY

BUSINESS SERVICES

GET HELP

CONNECT WITH US

need sympathy: leaving my garden behind

Comments (18)

Related Discussions

chris_ontOriginal Author

COMPANY

BUSINESS SERVICES

GET HELP

CONNECT WITH US

chris_ont
Original Author