A few months ago, my family and I began the process of transforming our yard into a wonderful, landscaped yard with lush flower beds and vegetable gardens. After a year of living in our new house it was time for us to make it our own and work on some much-needed landscaping. The flower beds were a disaster, there was only one tree in the yard and there was no garden in sight. The owners before had done limited landscaping and it showed. After receiving our first shipment of trees from the local nursery, we put our plan in motion.
We all worked extremely hard digging holes to plant trees, weeding the already established flower beds and building garden boxes. Everyone had a different opinion of what they wanted in our yard. My husband wanted a dogwood tree which reminds him of our childhoods in Pennsylvania, my son loved the look of the River Birch tree and my daughter wanted to add vibrant color with an orangish reddish Tree Rose and I wanted to add beautiful hydrangeas to my flower beds.
I began writing a blog about my family planting more than just roots in South Carolina. All I needed to do was tweak my rough draft and take pictures of the yard we had transformed. Unfortunately, before I was able to take pictures the deer ate my hydrangea plants and the tops off my tomato plants. The beautiful orange roses on the Tree Rose disappeared and the tree is looking quite sad. Where did we go wrong in designing our gardens? When we lived in Pennsylvania, we always received compliments about our flower beds and gardens. So, what was so different? We are no longer in Pennsylvania; the climate and soil are not the same.
Luckily, the trees we planted are still growing nicely and the herbs I planted are producing an abundance of thyme, rosemary, and basil. As for the rest of my gardens, it will be back to the drawing board and do a little research to find what is the perfect plants that will thrive in the southern environment. Plus, I need to find how to keep those pesky deer from eating my plants. Any suggestions, please send them my way.
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