herding cats & burning soup: In My Garden: Before and After Fall Garden

Alright! I'm going to start attempting to blog on a normal-ish-er schedule. lol Likely not many posts about books since it's been over a year since I've read anything (yikes, right?) But garden, herd, food, maybe some gaming, health (I've been working hard and lost 41 pounds!). So to kick that off I decided a before/after. It's really just a seasonal change. Switching from Summer plants to Fall plants but I also found a picture from 2015 before I started gardening (about 2 years ago now). And whoa!

I need to transition the entire garden but so far these are the two projects I've accomplished in Oct/Nov. First my mailbox bed. Like I said first pic is 2015. Then the others are end of Summer pics. Still not bad but has lost a little of it's oompf just because of changing seasons. Getting a little cooler here, etc.

And now. (excuse my mess in the background lol that's all my supplies and such

And my front planters. Last year I decided to start using this front of the yard space. It's just dead area basically between road and sidewalk. I got these four huge planters (and they are BIG)

They had started to look SO bad. They looked great this summer. Lush and colorful. But the change in weather was really really hard on them and the plants left were scraggly and struggling. So time to purge and revamp! I didn't toss all the plants, though. A couple did get composted but others were put into the greenhouse to hopefully over winter and others were used in the new planters as well (asters, herbs)

An over view of all four plus the emptied planters ready to go!

The project started with a huge shopping day. I hit I think 5 garden centers/nurseries plus a pumpkin stand. Took hours but was fun and kind of therapeutic.

For fall I LOVE using a mixture of edible plants and decorative. Well I like that year round. But for Fall I go for kales, cabbages, heuchera, mustards, bokchoy ,mums/asters, all kinds of herbs like sage and rosemary and lavender, dusty miller, snapdragons, grasses, bloody dock. I also toss in pumpkins of various colors and sizes. There's just something about them that completes the look.

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I love the look. I've been asked about picking plants. Honestly I just grab what I like. I've also learned over the years which I can keep alive. (I kill a LOT) Colorwise for fall I go silvers, purples and oranges. I love that combo with various greens mixed in. I always go for a variety of textures too and try to find things that will keep color through the winter (like the kale and heucheras) that don't rely on blooms for color.

I started gardening for real about 2 years ago now. Every year I pick something to learn and gardening was it a couple years back. I'm not great at it by any means. I've figured some things out like these two beds but then others are still a disaster lol I kill a TON of plants. I pick the wrong areas for others. Some of the best advice I ever got when I started was cheekily...plant so many plants that even if half die no one would notice. LOL I took it to heart. Ha!

Really though I just try different things. I find what I like and I keep those items as my base items (usually perennials). Mums, dusty miller, heuchera for example are in my garden features year round in different forms. Then I toss in others I've grown to love. Or just ones I go "ooooo pretty!" when I see them at the store. If it's not working I pull em out and move them around to other areas and try again.

Anywho. This is where I am now. On to the next revamp!