Sounds like a great plan Barb! I'm going to try tomatoes "again" and plant a lemon tree for my food stuffs. This is a small start but a start.

Otherwise, I'd like to fill in my damp, shady area behind the house with something that will actually grow; start defining my beds a bit more i.e. the "tropical" bed, the "butterfly" bed, etc. I'm trying some new-to-me plants in my beds using some of the knowledge I've gleaned from this forum.

I'm planting a couple trees this week to start a new bed. The new bed is my start in reducing lawn which is HUGE for me. We have a beautiful, healthy St. Augustine lawn that we've worked for five years to get looking good. It has even thrived through the once a week watering this year. I understand the need for reducing lawn, but it's still hard! Like any other big project, it will be baby steps, but it's a beginning.

Thanks for the topic, looking forward to reading the other responses. -- Terri

Cookie bush -- does it come in Oatmeal Raisen?? If not, guess I'll settle for trying to get the last 25' x 3' of my garden whacked and paper and mulch down. The weed barrier cloth never worked any better than newspaper and it didn't break down, so I'm not going to use it anymore. I'm cutting the left over weed barrier into squares to put in the bottom of flower pots. It allows drainage but the soil stays in the pot. Will try to get the above accomplished before Christmas. HO, HO, HO!! cora

Hi
Hoping to get the kinks out of the "seep wall" I built last year. My carefully planned waterfall developed a leak
almost immediately. The roof had to be replaced due to storm damage so many orchids got sunburned. Several vines went hog wild . so will have to be removed .I used expanding foam for the "rock wall" which seems to be working well though not underwater it's pulled loose from the glass but the epiphytes are actually rooting into it without any other media. The wall has pockets that never get rain due to roof overhang and standard soil does not hold enough water so will have to redo that.
So ,I guess this year will mostly be repairing last year lol gary

Barb, there is no cookie bush, but you can have a peanut butter bush, and/or a chocolate pudding tree! (G)

My goal is to get the weeds under control, spray all the Peaches/Pears/Plums/Apples/Mangoes, redo the veggie gardens, and bring in more soil so I can plant the far-too-many potted plants I have, that need to go in the ground.

I get discouraged when I see the amount of work to be done.

Lisa

Trying to make my garden a little less work! Some of the vines, coral vine for one, I'll try to find a different spot. I never allowed it enough room, but that was the case with alot of the vines. Also finding the right spot for some of the shrubs. Seems I never get them in the right spot the first time.

If there is one thing about gardening that I have learned is that it can not be done over night. A little bit here, a little bit there, a little bit more in the middle, all done."G" We garden because is our passion not an obligation.
We are not being paid by the hour.
Perfection is divine, not a human characteristic.
This past week I saw a cute sign, it was a weed saying, I'll be back, I laugh.
Felix

defeat the pickle worm.

My goal WAS to do hardscaping this fall/winter in my backyard. I just started my backyard garden this past spring and I DID HAVE big plans for the area. NOW I am trying to not have a nervous breakdown as I watch most of my backyard be dug up by a backhoe while a new septic drain field is put in. I have saved the plants that were in the way by potting them up. I can't wait until the area is done so I can re-draw my plans to include avoiding the drain field area. Oh well, there's always weeding to be done in the front yard :( Kay

I have 6 truckloads of dirt in my yard as I speak. We tackled the worstpart of the yard first.... so we won`t be needing so much dirt later.

I hope by the end of next year we will finally be able to do just the maintenance , not this exhausting construction.

I have way too many...

1. Currently working on the bog garden...still digging the hole. Next, need to put the liner down, fill the hole, plant the poor LA iris rhizomes that have been waiting forever...

2. Repot a bunch of orchids that desperately need it

3. Start working on the shadehouse. This needs to be done before the cold nights are here. My orchids cannot wait.

4. Redo a few areas - weed, seed...

5. Feed and groom the roses

6. Start more veggies and flower seeds

7. Get going with the retaining wall in the front....This is where my rose and perennial garden is going to go (for now, it is a steep hill...)

Once I am done with my tea, I am off to work on (1), and possibly (2) and (5)...
Still have to find time for homework/research ... :)

Gardens are a never ending project!
Olya

This years goal is to get all the plants in the ground that I've received at swaps. I wish I had a twin that could stay home and garden while I ran the shop.

My goals are minimal. I mostly plan to enjoy the fruits of my labors. we've put a lot into our yard and gardens the past few years, now I just want to sit back and watch it all grow. Other than the usual weeding, watering adding a few new plantings, I have no great aspirations at this point. But you know me, this could all change tomorrow!

Oh, wow, where do I start. My Mom died in July and I inherited her orchids. I know how to water them and that's about it, so I'll need to learn to repot as many of them are growing out of their bounds. I also inherited a big hoya that I need to revive since the landscapers at her house yanked it out of the pot and were going to toss it. I got it back but it's worse for the wear.

My other goal is to improve the look of the protected back yard garden in the winter months. I have lots of plants that look great and lush in summer but in the winter it looks pretty bare back there, particularly the plumeria "sticks". I like low maintenance plants with a lot of color, so I'm looking for a lot of different species of crotons, I think they look great and particuarly if there are a lot of them planted in groupings.

I also want to keep planting beds and ground cover so I can eventually get rid of all my grass.

I'd like to start vermicomposting.

And when my mom's house sells, I'll put in a walled courtyard with a pool, so it will be fun to plan the landscape for that area. I'm really looking forward to that.

My goal is to keep working toward filling in and achieving good layering in my beds. I'm still working a lot on ground covers here and there, and as always, scavenging organic materials for my yard. It's nice to finally see a few things growing in after a few rains recently.

Anna

Although I do not have the super powers required to defeat the evil pickle worm, I want to take some of the advice I asked for here and landscape the yard of my new house. We have been accosting tree crews with the mulching machines and so far have had four loads dropped off at the house so I can enrich the sandy soil. We finally are selling our old house so I can afford put in some foundation plants.We have gone from this:

and this:

to this:

and this (the wild woman was going to spray me with the hose)

and this:

Looking at these, I have come further than I thought so it was a good exercise. Mostly my goal is to enjoy every minute I spend in my yard. I am so lucky to have it.

My goals are simpler this year. The only big project I have is to do the garden path I've been talking about for a year and use the same pavers and bricks to finish the sunset spot. We haven't even been able to sit back there and watch the sunsets because it's all piled full of pavers!
For the overall garden look, I plan to thin out some of the shrubs and plant more small stuff. It all looks so overgrown. I think I need to lighten the whole thing up so I'm planning on lots of white annuals like impatiens and white pentas. They should look pretty with the blue salvia.

This upcoming year is sort of like "Phase 3" of the overall gardening "plan", which is really just the rough sketch of landscape geometry in my head.

We moved into this house 2.5 years ago. The yard was nearly empty... Just one large Laurel Oak in the front yard, and a couple of Viburnum hedges around the sides. The first phase was to clean up and shape what was there, as well as install the hard features of the future garden: cutting out new beds and installing stone and rock aspects.
Phase two involved the past 2 years of installing various permanent plants: specimen and shade trees, additional foundation and fence hedges, vines and trellises, the herb garden, and so on. That part is about 85% complete.
So I'm entering phase 3, which is the fine-tuning and refining, as well as maintenance of what is there.
I just think about what this place will look like in another 5 years or so once everything has really had a chance to settle and dig in...

gardencpa-WOW you've come a long way baby! I remember that blank slate not too long ago. It is great to look at before pics. I still have mine when we first built our home and Dennis and I love looking at them and seeing how much we have done in almost 5 years. It's very rewarding to see the changes we've made.

Kate, I hope you will share pics of your paver project!

My goal is to put in the pond...FINALLY! And add the pergola over the patio. Those are two of our biggest projects, and they need to get completed. Then I can finally start on the side yard garden (with the formally laid out pathways and arches) with a clear conscience.

I really want to get the HUGE, back-breaking jobs done while I still have the strength to tackle them. After that, we will mostly just have general maintenance, weeding, plant replacement, etc. That stuff is fun. The digging and hauling and building part, not so much so.

Marcia

My husband and I want to sod the front yard. We did the back in March. We need to redo islands, mulch, get the veggie garden finished, and redo some fence sections.

We are also in the process of nurturing some baby banana trees and multiplying our pineapple plant. We just got our first pineapple off it so we planted the top. We also have some new plants coming off the mother plant. Once we plant those, we'll have 4 plants. We have lots more fruit plants we'd love to plant including blackberry and orange.

We also love growing roses and are getting quite a collection going of antique roses. We've got some of them in pots, right now, but we'll eventually build trellises when we plant the climbers.

We have definitely done a lot since we moved into our house 4 years ago, but we are definitely not finished.

It seems like there is so much to do I don't know where to start. This year I didn't get much of anything done in the garden and it shows. Next year I will be better, as long as we don't have a stupid construction crew trampling around for 4 months.