Garden Photo of the Day

Barbara’s Massachusetts Garden Through the Seasons

A garden bed that looks good in every season and from every vantage point

By GPOD Contributor
early fall garden with colorful flowers

Hi GPODers!

For most for us, winter is the ideal time for rest and reflection. When the outside world is cold, dark, and gray there is plenty of time and opportunity to examine our garden photos from the previous year and make plans for the spring ahead. Today’s contributor is doing just that, with an in-depth look at her garden as it evolves from the earliest yellow blooms of spring to the first frost and subsequent snow of the winter season. Barbara Owen has previously shared her garden in Wellesley, Massachusetts (Surprises and Lessons From Barbara’s Garden and Color Themes in Barbara’s Garden), but today we get a year-round tour of a specific section of her space.

Since I can’t be outside in my garden 24/7, I plan my garden colors for the views outside but also for the views from within the house. This series of photos shows the most “seen” part of the garden—the view as you come through the gate into the back yard, the view from the kitchen table and out the window over the sink, and the view that greets me first thing every morning. I especially enjoy the changes in the color scheme from spring’s sunny yellows to summer’s warm red and orange to fall’s muted tones and winter white. With the bird bath, winter bird feeders and hummingbird feeder all summer, this area also has a lot of activity especially in the winter with 10-13 species of birds that I’m counting two days a week as part of Project FeederWatch.

yellow spring flowers in garden
May: The garden is full of yellow alyssum (Aurinia saxatilis, Zones 3–7) and daffodils. In years before the rabbits arrived, the bare ground area would have been filled with blue snow glories.

narrow garden bed with pink foxgloves in the background
Yellow is followed by white iris and then pink, lavender and white of the tall flower stalks of foxglove (Digitalis purpurea, Zones 4–8). It spreads happily through the garden although usually I also transplant the young plants to areas it hasn’t yet colonized and then, after it blooms, sprinkle the seeds to encourage it to grow in new places.

summer garden with bright red, yellow, and orange flowers
Moving into summer, the color scheme brightens to include a lot of red, along with orange and yellow. I want this area to be bright and cheery, welcoming people as well as the birds and pollinators to the garden.

blue jay in birdbath in colorful garden bed
The bird feeders in the winter and the birdbath year-round attract many birds to our yard. From my kitchen window, I love to watch the robins and blue jays with their exuberant splashing.

early fall garden with colorful flowers
In September and October, I notice that many people have lost interest in their gardens. For me, fall is a time when my garden continues to bring joy with the flowers that remain bright even if the goldfinches are taking the petals off the zinnias to get at the seeds and the zinnia leaves are dusted with powdery mildew.

garden in fall with dead leaves left
The killing frosts used to arrive mid-October, often by Columbus Day weekend. In recent years, it’s more likely that the plants become less active from lack of daylight as the season stretches into early November in my MetroWest Boston garden. When the frost does arrive, I’ve joined the “leave the leaves” movement. I’m learning to see the beauty of the fall colors, textures along with the flocks of juncos, sparrows and ten other birds species that enjoy exploring among the flower stalks.

winter garden covered in snow
Winter: A big snowstorm is promised for tonight but mostly we’ve gotten used to lighter storms, enough to outline the trees with “winter lace” and blanket the garden.

Thank you so much for this beautiful tour of your garden through the seasons, Barbara! From every angle you’ve shown and through each month of the year there is something of interest for human visitors to admire as well as food and shelter for wildlife and pollinator visitors to enjoy.

If you’re spending this last (long) leg of winter reflecting on last year’s garden and making plans for this year’s growing season, consider sharing your photos with GPOD! Follow the directions below to submit your photos via email, or send me a DM on Instagram: @agirlherdogandtheroad.

 

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To submit, send 5-10 photos to gpod@taunton.com along with some information about the plants in the pictures and where you took the photos. We’d love to hear where you are located, how long you’ve been gardening, successes you are proud of, failures you learned from, hopes for the future, favorite plants, or funny stories from your garden.

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Comments

  1. User avater
    simplesue 02/09/2025

    Wow, your Foxgloves are fabulous! Pretty flower bed, interesting to see it through the seasons!

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