We bought our house, which I refer to as Withy Holm, in November of 2020. It basically checked all the boxes on our “essential needs” list, despite needing a lot of work, and was situated on a one-acre lot. My main goal, besides creating a mother-in-law suite on the first floor, was to add character to this rather bland 60’s brick colonial. Part of that vision included productive use of our yard for growing flowers. I was also interested in growing herbs and produce, but flowers are my main desire.

I knew I wanted a large array of cutting material to use for flower arranging. While I dreamt of a large patch of annual flowers grown from seed, there was also a lot of perennial landscaping that needed to be done. There was a large amount of honeysuckle, which is invasive in our area, unsightly weeds, poison ivy, trees that needed significant pruning and hardscaping (namely, rocks) that the previous owner had put down.

Our property also has a few features that we really enjoy. First, there is a small creek running along the north east border of our lot. The creek is guarded by several mature trees, and copious amounts of honeysuckle. Nestled in the driveway is a sizable circle garden, and the backyard descends in a gentle, sunny slope. Because of the location of the creek, and how our house is situated on our lot, our backyard is very private and we rarely see our neighbors. I admittedly have mixed feelings about this. Part of me loves the privacy and feeling of seclusion we have on our patio, despite the fact that we live in a busy suburban area. The other part of me wishes we had more neighbors to interact with and to build community with. However, we love to invite friends and family to enjoy our home with us, so we feel we are able to create a welcoming space for others, despite our lack of actual neighbors.

The first thing we tackled was to remove a large amount of honeysuckle in the very back of our yard, with the intension of planting more useful plants. It ended up being a section of land that was approximately 100 feet long and at least 20 feet deep, if not deeper in certain spots. Once all this was cleared away, I felt I could get a better feel for the spaces in our yard, and gauge how much sun each space received throughout the day.

As I began planning the landscape for our yard, I broke the property up into different “gardens”, so that I could more easily plan what would be appropriate to plant in these spots. I also made a list of perennials that I wanted to grow so that I could cut from them year after year. This, of course, is an investment in our property, but the promise of a beautiful garden yielding blooms and greenery each season is worth it to me.

These are the distinct areas I have planned out:

Front of House:

1. Driveway Circle

2. Bradford Pears

3. Mailbox

4. Front Creekside

5. Window Beds

6. Side Arbor and Gate

   Back of House:

1. Pond

2. Creekside Slope

3. Patio Beds

4. Creek Hillside

5. Raised Beds

6. Pergola

To prevent this from becoming a monster blog post, I am going to stop here and pick it up in my next post with the front yard areas.