Happy Monday GPODers!

We’re starting the week with some fabulous garden inspiration, particularly for new gardeners or anyone having to start from scratch. Kathleen Shelman is giving us a detailed look at how she’s constructing a stunning new meadow garden. From the wild, overgrown yard she started with, to the prepping and planning process, and finally the stages of growth in its first growing season.

My name is Kathleen Shelman, and I am in the process of creating a new garden in Port Townsend, Washington. We are in zone eight, with soil that appears to be a mixture of sand, some loam, and many rocks. After gardening on an acre outside of Portland, Oregon for 37 years, we decided to downsize to a quarter acre lot. Half of the lot will be home and hardscape, but the rest is mine to garden. I loved my previous perennial border, but was ready for a change, so I decided to plant a meadow that would be a mix of my favorite more casual perennials and grasses. My goal was to create a small landscape that would look interesting for at least 9 months of the year and would require little if any staking or editing. My color palette would run to blues and purples with accents of yellow and orange, which I have mainly adhered to, although some of my other favorites have worked their way in. The fall before the big move I took many, many cuttings and divisions so my meadow has been basically free to me. Here is the area, approximately 30 x 30, before we began.

We had previously removed the wild roses which completely covered the yard, and had the ground tilled to a depth of about 18 inches. We also added several truckloads of compost.

Uncharacteristically for me, I made a plan based on structure, color, and bloom time. We marked a grid of 36 inch squares with four plants in each square. There were issues. We found that three rows needed to be deleted, which left me with a bunch of extra plants which I wanted to include somewhere. There was also an unfortunate dump of starts in which about five rows were mixed up. This was in March, so I was not exactly sure what everything was, but knew that I would find out. We would need water since Port Townsend is in a rain shadow even though the climate is cool, so we installed a drip system with 30 rows of 30 foot drip tubing with emitters every 12 inches.

Here is the meadow with everything planted and beginning to grow.

By June, things were taking off. I was surprised by both the size and vigor of almost everything.

Through July, August, and September, there was a succession of bloom. In some cases, I found that plants that had been relatively well-behaved in Oregon had become thugs in the enriched soil. I have had to remove almost all of the asters and most of the sunflowers and boltonias. The Canadian burnet (Sanguisorba canadensis, Zones 3–8) is on probation.

Now in October, the grasses are more visible although I have a surprising number of blooms left. I am attributing the long blooming season for many plants to the relative lack of temperature variation here near the water.

I am looking forward to seeing the meadow with frost and hopefully a little snow. It will all be cut to the ground in February.

This has been a really interesting experience for me and I’m looking forward to the next season when some of my friends that did not choose to bloom this year will be joining the group.

Thank you for sharing your incredible garden transformation, Kathleen! Starting a new garden from scratch can be a daunting endeavor, but you’ve perfectly illustrated what can be achieved in a year with the right right prepping, planning, and experimentation.

If you started a new garden this year and documented the process, we’d love to see it! Follow the directions below to submit your photos.

Have a garden you’d like to share?

Have photos to share? We’d love to see your garden, a particular collection of plants you love, or a wonderful garden you had the chance to visit!

To submit, send 5-10 photos to [email protected] 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.

Have a mobile phone? Tag your photos on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter with #FineGardening!

Do you receive the GPOD by email yet? Sign up here.

Fine Gardening Recommended Products

Berry & Bird Rabbiting Spade, Trenching Shovel

Fine Gardening receives a commission for items purchased through links on this site, including Amazon Associates and other affiliate advertising programs.

Ideal Tool for All Gardeners Use: Our heavy duty trenching shovel is designed by a professional gardening tool designer. Lifetime Durability: This heavy duty drain spade is made of high-quality stainless steel, it is very strong and durable, even if it is used for high-strength work, it will not bend. Ergonomic Wood Handle: The handle of this planting spade is made of ash hardwood harvested from FSC-certified forests and has an ergonomically streamlined design, making it very suitable for everyone's hands. Multi-Use: This digging shovel is generally used for digging trenches, digging holes, transplanting, edging, moving compost, cutting thick turf and furrowing. The sharp blade allows you to cut, scoop, dig, lift and dice in hard soil.

Buy at Amazon

Attracting Beneficial Bugs to Your Garden, Revised and Updated Second Edition: A Natural Approach to Pest Control

Fine Gardening receives a commission for items purchased through links on this site, including Amazon Associates and other affiliate advertising programs.

This revised and updated edition of Jessica Walliser’s award-winning Attracting Beneficial Bugs to Your Garden offers a valuable and science-backed plan for bringing balance back to the garden. With this indispensable gardening reference—now updated with new research, insights, and voices—learn how to create a healthy, balanced, and diverse garden capable of supporting a hard-working crew of beneficial pest-eating insects and eliminate the need for synthetic chemical pesticides.

Buy at Amazon

Gardener's Log Book from NYBG

Fine Gardening receives a commission for items purchased through links on this site, including Amazon Associates and other affiliate advertising programs.

This weatherproof five-year log book includes the following features: · Sturdy waterproof cover to protect pages from rain and muddy soil · Lined pages and gridded paper for plotting beds · Five years of 12-month bloom and harvest grids for recording what you planted and when · Authoritative appendices on composting, pruning, pest and disease control, and container gardening · Useful reminders by season on fertilizing, mulching, and transplanting · Space for listing your favorite sources and suppliers.

Buy at Amazon