Now that the holiday season is in the rearview mirror, and the long and gray months of winter still lie ahead, I like to look back at the previous year’s garden photos. I do this for two reasons: to perk me up from the winter blues, and to seek inspiration for the gardening season ahead.
It was a pretty good gardening year overall. We only lost a couple of plants over the winter, and the weeds seemed less numerous than in the past. On the other hand, last year was hotter and drier than 2023. Consequentially, the water bill was higher in the summer months than the previous year. This in-spite of the conversion of the front yard to a low water landscape.
Victories and defeats, and a near catastrophe
So, what worked and what didn’t in the garden last year? Let’s start with a positive note. I finally got a decent crop of tomatoes! Once upon a time, growing tomatoes would not have been a big deal. I would plop a few plants in the ground, and 3 or 4 months later get decent results. Nowadays, getting more than a handful of fruit is cause for celebration.
Additionally, most of the plants we put in the ground in the spring to fill holes survived the hot, dry summer. That’s always a win. Slowly, yet surely, we are making our landscape match the vision in my head. Undoubtable, the reality should match the dream about the time we either move, or get planted in the ground ourselves.
Conversely, while the failures weren’t numerous, they were rather obvious. The grasshoppers showed up in biblical proportions and devoured many plants to the ground. Assholes. I tried to salvage an Alberta spruce by pruning out a weird growth, only to realize the plant was unsalvageable. And we did lose a chokeberry over the winter that I was really excited about.
The catastrophe occurred in the new waterwise front yard. We put down too much mulch in the spring. So much, in fact, that water from the sprinkler system couldn’t penetrate it and reach the ground. We nearly lost a bunch of plants because of a lack of attention. The plants out there may be waterwise, but they do need some water.
A look back
April started off well. Plenty of sunny days with adequate moisture. No massive snowstorms or bitter cold snaps to blast tender new growth. The mid-spring bulbs gave one of the better displays last year. Below is a clump of crocuses in the long border in the backyard. I’m generally not a huge fan of crocuses, because they’re so small that their display is underwhelming. However, after putting on such a good show last year, I’m thinking of planting quite a few more clumps in the autumn.
Below is the new waterwise front yard. We nearly had a major disaster out here last year. Here you can see the extra mulch we put down in May because the old mulch looked rather shabby. However, we put down too much, and water wasn’t reaching the ground. In late summer, we pulled the mulch back from around the base of the plants, and the plants rebounded nicely.
Still, not everything was a near calamity in the front. As you can see below, the Rocky Mountain columbines I planted last year bloomed rather profusely.
The arrival of summer
June also had its hits and misses. Below is the Alberta spruce I tried to shape up. Once I cut out the weird growth, I was left with a rather horrendous tree. Sadly, it had to come out.
It wasn’t all gloom in June however. The renovations we have undertaken in the back corner are starting to show promising results. This part of the Vintage garden had become overgrown and weedy. With a bit of hard work, and copious sweating, it’s starting to come together.
July is a frustrating month for me. The Vintage garden goes into a bit of a lull at this time. I’ve have been trying over the past few years to provide some spark, but the results have been disappointing. Oh, there is still plants in flower at this time. But the late spring and early summer blooms are starting to fade away, while the late summer blooms are just getting started.
These orange/yellow lilies, name unknown, were planted by the youngest Vintage daughter many years ago while she still lived at home. I’m happy to report they reliably bloom every July, and are still going strong.
When August rolled around, the eastern part of Colorado has been suffering from a two month drought. We finally got some measurable rain in the middle of the month. It wasn’t a monsoon by any means, but it was something. Any little bit helped. Unfortunately, the rains didn’t bring cooler temperatures. The hot weather would continue on well into autumn.
We come now we come to the pièce de résistance of the 2024 Vintage garden: homegrown tomatoes!
Now that I know I can successfully grow tomatoes is containers, I am going to purchase one or two more faux whiskey barrels and try some different varieties next year. I can’t wait!
Winding down into autumn
Come September, it was time for us to take stock of the Vintage garden and determine what weaknesses needed to be addressed.
With the removal of the Alberta spruce, it opened up an area of the long border that has long been a sore spot. The spruce was sucking up all the water, and not even waterwise plants could flourish in that spot. We added some Russian sage, black-eyed Susans, lavenders and some sedums to that spot.
We filled in some gaps in other parts of the garden as well. Here’s hoping that the majority of this new transplants survive the winter.
Even thought the weather was warmer than usual, much of the garden shrugged off the drought and looked awesome.
Because the weather was so warm, the October fall foliage finale was delayed by about a week or so later than usual. While the display was nice, it was not nearly as dazzling as it was in 2023.
And it wasn’t just the foliage that was a bit disappointing because of the warm autumn.. Some plants, like ‘Autumn Joy’ sedum, need crisp nighttime temperatures to look their best. Instead of bright red seed heads, they were more of a muddy burgundy color last year.
That being said, the asters ignored the warmer temps, and stepped up to the plate and put on a reliable display.
Imminent arrival of winter
Finally, we come to the end of not just the gardening year, but the calendar year as well. As you can see in the photo below, there is one final bloom of the growing season. Here in the Vintage garden, the autumn crocuses usually bloom in early November, the last plant to bloom before winter sets in. I took this photo on December 17th, just a few days before the winter solstice.
Reflection
As always, the 2024 gardening season had its ups and downs. The downs included grasshoppers, drought, a heatwave, and weeds. On the upside, I harvested homegrown tomatoes! For all the work that we put into the yard and garden, let’s be honest, it’s the plants that are doing the real labor. Give them some water, sun, and a little bit of maintenance, and the garden will usually thrive just fine. As the old adage goes, the best fertilizer is the gardener’s shadow.
How fared your garden last year?
