landscape the garden

We made some progress this summer—more clean up, mostly, but we also learned about and grew cannas, water lilies and other water plants, vegetables and herbs.

In 2009, we hope to finally come up with a plan. We think we need professional help for this.

With or without professional help, we seem to be ready to commit to a few projects, some of which will likely be completed in 2009: a hoop house and three raised beds for vegetables. We may do a greenhouse project this year, too.

Our landscaping class didn’t teach us much, but it did motivate us. We now have designs we’re happy with for the potager (a garden that mixes veggies, herbs, and flowers in a bedding plants arrangement rather than rows) and for the side yard (includes butterfly gardens and screening of the neighbor’s garage).

In doing that, we developed some confidence, so I’m feeling ready to get the rest of the yard designed on paper. Then, if it ever stops raining (wait! is that snow I see?), we could get started on some of this.

-signed up for a class

The local community college is offering a continuing education (non-credit) class called “Landscaping for the Homeowner” taught by members of the local landscaping professionals association. It will be Tuesday evenings from early February to mid-April.

I’m going to take it along with R. I love that this was such an easy decision to make because it fits right into one of my top ten goals for 2008.

This is not a huge priority at the moment, but there’s one good project I can start. I’ve been meaning to set up a notebook where we can put pictures, drawings of ideas, and other notes in one location. So, I’ll get that going.