My Backyard Garden Before and After

 I actually can't believe just how far this space has come.  We've been in this house for just over five years, and it takes a good three years for a garden to get established and to truly look like a garden. I'm sure you've heard this before, but it's worth repeating: the first year it sleeps, the second year it creeps and the third year it leaps.  

Gardening is one of my passions.  I think more because I like things to look good and that extends to the outside.  When we first moved to this house, there were no plants in our backyard or our front yard.  The other challenge was that the space is quite small.  Most people think that because they have a small yard they need fewer plants, but the opposite is actually true.   The more height, width and dimension you can give to your garden (or any small space), the more you will trick the eye by giving the illusion of more space.  This is why I decided to do rows of shrubs and perennials. I chose to layer my garden with Emerald cedars and Morning Glory lining the back fence, separated by Rose of Sharon and in front of that I placed Hydrangeas and then Peonies.  I separated my Peonies with Sedum and in front of them I have Salvia and Asters.   I then placed Boxwoods in front of them and separate the Boxwoods with annuals.  The Boxwoods and Emerald Cedars provide winter interest and the other plants bloom at different times of the year so there is visual interest
 throughout the year.

The pic above is when the perennial Blue Salvia was out and the photo below was taken later when the Sedum is starting to colour and the Fall Asters are out.  The perennial Blue Salvia is one of my favourite flowers.  You may have noticed that I love blue/purple in my garden and unlike most perennials, this plant has a long bloom time.  It blooms for at least a month.

So here's the before pic of my backyard.  Actually, these Emerald Cedars I put in the ground the day after we moved, so picture it with no cedars and no bunny.  See, it's not a big space but by putting a lot of shrubs and plants in rows, I visually doubled the size of my backyard.

I like to add some whimsy and quirky elements to every garden, so I placed old shutters that I got at a garage sale against the fence for the Morning Glory to climb.  Morning Glory is a great  filler if you are waiting on other perennial vines to get established.   You can just throw the seed down and they will come up.  They also self-seed so they will come up the next year.

Here's a close up of a Rose of Sharon (above) and perennial Blue Salvia (below).  To see some close ups of my Peonies when they were in bloom, you can go here.

Here's one more close up - Fall Aster.

Hope this gives you some ideas (and hope) if you have a small backyard.  If you want to see a beautiful country garden that I toured this summer, you can check it out here or on my sidebar.

I've had a lot of requests to show the room that was done in our basement a couple of weeks ago, and I'm working on it and should have some pics soon.  I'm also working on some very cool fabric designs which I hope to share soon.  I've been doodling and designing for years so I'm very excited about showing you some of my designs.

One more thing, people keep telling me they are having a hard time commenting and I've tried to sort it out with Blogger but no one seems to know what's wrong.   I know you can comment if you have a Google page, but for some reason I'm having a hard time publishing it.    I've also had people say they can't follow me by e-mail, but I think this has been fixed so you might want to try again.  If you have a g-mail account you can just click to follow. 

Sorry about this.  

I'm not good with tech - can you tell?  It's actually quite amazing that I even have a blog.  

 Thanks for all your love and support!!