Surprise! Bonus Space!
Spring has sort of finally sprung, and this weekend I was in desperate need of a dose of fresh air. After a plant shopping excursion with a friend where I was unreasonably excited about my finds, I’ve decided to officially tackle my backyard as a bonus space for the One Room Challenge!
Considering my 0 for 2 finish rate for the One Room Challenge thus far, you may be wondering if it’s wise to tack on an entire extra space to the challenge. But I’m here to reassure you that I rarely make sensible decisions when creativity strikes, so I’m taking this on with lots of excitement anyway! Besides, it’s Week 2 which puts me right on schedule for new, ambitious plans that will make me say, “What was I thinking?!” in 4 weeks or so. Aside from having a supportive (read: enabling) friend with me to pump me up about this decision, I’m hoping that sprinkling in extra outdoor time will keep me refreshed as I toil away in the basement. I probably would have benefitted from coming up for air a bit more last year, so let’s say this is a mental health add-on as much as it is a spatial add-on.
My semi-construction-zone of a backyard
I feel the need to warn you all before we get going here: I’m not great with plants. So this will NOT be a masterclass in gardening. I know my limits. That said, if you find that you yourself are not a plant whisperer, I hope that following along can show you what’s possible with some very basic gardening skills and a little creativity! I’ll be seeking some help from my green-thumbed friend (and the internet) along the way, and I’ll be doing it all on a budget. Yard improvements are often deceptively expensive, so this is where the creativity comes in. I’ll be seeking items while thrifting, and turning to my Buy Nothing Group where I can. You never know what people are looking to offload - someone last year was giving away all of their yard pavers to anyone who was willing to haul them away.
My plant excursion was for some bulbs that will bloom this summer. I asked a friend if I could join her for a plant outing, as I need a voice of both knowledge and reason when it comes to gardening. I knew that I wanted some variation in height and texture, and while I wanted varying colors I wanted to stick to a palette that worked well across the whole yard. She helped me pick packs of bulbs that would work in my shady conditions and that fit the bill in terms of the layered approach I wanted. She helped me understand how to read the packaging properly regarding how to plant layered arrangements using bulbs. She also helped me find bulbs that would be right for planting in the next couple weeks, as some varieties needed to be in the ground already. This is the kind of stuff that I’m not so well-versed on, and having her help made such a difference for me. I will be including a cost breakdown at the end of the One Room Challenge, though I will also include costs along the way as a reference point. These bags of 12 - 15 bulbs were $17 each at Costco.
I was looking for some options for some evergreen height, and just as my friend had almost convinced me that boxwoods might be the answer (they’re not my favorite), we spotted these rhododendrons at Costco! They are the exact variety that I already have in my yard, and they are big and healthy. AND they were only $25 each! I may or may not have shamelessly giggled and squealed in giddy excitement. So this will not be the year that I give boxwoods an honest try, as I’ve decided to use the camellias I already have in my yard for that year-round height by my deck and replace them along the fence with a rhododendron hedge.
My yard has quite a few difficulties to contend with. There is a lot of tree cover, so I need shade loving plants, or at least ones that do well in part shade. Grass also does not like these shady conditions. Some areas of our yard have great privacy, and others not so much. Our fence is not in the greatest shape, but we’re also not looking to replace it at this time. So I’ll want to address all of that with some creative planting.
The biggest hurdle is that roughly 1/3 of my yard is covered in (not quite enough) gravel and cannot have anything planted into the ground. When we bought this house there was a large patch of English Ivy underneath the trees. It housed a LOT of bugs, and rendered that part of the yard totally unusable. We had been slowly but surely cutting back the ivy each year until Poison Ivy crept in. I couldn’t even go in my backyard that year (I’m highly allergic), much less work on maintaining the ivy. It’s so invasive that in the one year we couldn’t cut it back, it regrew to its original location negating seven years of our progress. After that we called in a professional to remediate it all, and it was the best money I’ve ever spent. They dug up a few feet below grade to get a substantial amount of the roots, but we still needed to put down landscape fabric and gravel to suffocate the remainder of the roots or it will just grow back. So in this whole zone we’re strictly limited to container gardening.
To be honest, I don’t mind that grass doesn’t grow terribly well in my yard. Instead of trying to fight nature and wrangle my lawn into compliance with a monospecies lawn, I’m going to take a sustainable and environmentally friendly approach by encouraging biodiversity in that space. I will be using microclover as a ground cover, and I will be planting low-lying partial shade wildflowers as well. This will add some visual interest, provide lots of nature and gathering fun for my kids, and it supports the local ecosystem. A biodiverse approach to lawn care helps maintain the water table, balance soil conditions, and has seeds and flowers for animals and pollinators. I’m excited about this part, as I’m pretty ready to ditch my muddy patches for a dose of color and texture.
I currently have three varieties of camellias along my fence line where I can actually plant in the ground, and one of those three varieties did not do well here. So I plan to replace this area with a hedge of rhododendrons, which I know do well in my soil and in varying light conditions on my property. This should help improve my privacy concerns (they are evergreen), and give me lovely blooms in May.
I’m Adding Ferns To These
At present the gravel area is … sparse. There are plantings along the perimeter, literally nothing in the middle, and a sad row of camellias in plastic planters at the edge of the deck which keep getting blown over in strong winds. I plan to build out a raised planter bed along the deck to house the camellias that survived being blown about, and I’ll relocate the ones that have done well along my back fence to this spot as well. These will give me some evergreen height, and if they do well I’ll have some winter flowers to lift my spirits. I’ll be planting Astilbe bulbs in front of the camellias for summer texture and color. I am adding some visual depth to my current planters along the fence line in this gravel zone by planting ferns for some low interest. I currently have hydrangeas and rhododendrons in these, and they may become all hydrangeas this year if I want to plant my rhododendron hedge more densely. And I’ll be adding some large containers of elephant ears and hostas to fill in some of the awkward gaps along the fence.
If the budget stretches well, I would love to splurge on some pea gravel for a seating area toward the rear of the yard near our white fence planters! This large gravel has done the job the last couple years of keeping the ivy at bay, but I may want to keep the rough stuff to the less open areas and have something a little softer underfoot in a lounging zone.
I’m excited to take you along on this rather dichotomous One Room Challenge through my dark basement and my bright backyard!
I have added grounding exercises to my mindfulness practice, and I feel the same sense of centering when I’m working with my hands in the earth. What is your favorite thing about gardening?
Be sure to check out all the amazing progress happening by ORC participants this week at www.oneroomchallenge.com/orc-blog and let me know in the comments if you’re doing the ORC this round - I’d love to stop on over to your blog or Instagram and cheer you on!
