Tag Archives: Gardening

Hints and Tips for Getting Your Yard Ready for the Summer

May 9, 2022 Live
Hints and Tips for Getting Your Yard Ready for the Summer

One of the moments I love is getting my yard ready for the summer. Why? It means that I get to be outdoors, doing what I love, gardening!

When I bought my new house, I loved my big yard but was overwhelmed. What do I do first? What do I have to prepare? On and on. Overwhelmed.

The Annual Maintenance Plan

Today, after owning it for a while, I have a system and am in a groove. I almost count down the hours until I go outside and play in my yard.

Winter up in the northern part of North America can be harsh. On the one hand, this very extreme weather helps you start with a clean palette every Spring. Very very cold temperatures “clean” the environment.  

And with that, once the snow clears, nature leaves behind branches, leaves, etc. But, if you are like me, I don’t remove all of my plants from the year before. The reason is that bugs get a place to survive and grow their young. It’s also good food for some animals that stay here for the winter.

And so, in the Spring, I go through a list of tasks that keep me busy outdoors – from basic things like topping up the soil to cleaning windows. Spring is the time to refresh your house and yard.

I’ve included my checklist of all my activities to get my house and yard ready. When I bought my house, I had NO CLUE what maintenance was required.   So I have used this basic list to help me keep it straight and stay on track. It has served me well for many years.

Hints and Tips for Getting Your Yard Ready

  • Many of the activities are weather and temperature dependant. For example, you can’t dethatch your lawn when there is still snow on the ground.  
  • Many of the maintenance activities build on top of each other. That’s because you can’t get it done in 1 weekend.
  • And if I feel truly overwhelmed, I do some activities and forgo others. 
  • This checklist matches northern climates where there is a hard winter. Folks may have to tailor it for communities that have much milder (aka no snow) winters.

It takes me a few months before I have it all cleaned up (because I can only do this work on the weekends). But even though our summers are shorter than in other parts of North America, I still have many weekends to sit and enjoy the fruits of my labour.

My view while sipping wine after doing all my Spring Maintenance

Bliss Reflections

Well, for obvious reasons, Spring gives people joy. But for me, I have realized two things: 1) Physical work in the yard and on the house is good for me as it works off my stress, and 2) my yard and my house are my canvas.  

As I wrote in my previous blog, I allow myself to express my artistic side through my renovations and gardening. It’s my outlet, and I have learned that to be a whole person, you can’t make work can’t be your everything.

As humans, we are more complex and have multiple sides and aspects. For example, since owning my own home, I have realized that I have to spend time in my garden or on my house and redecorating.  

And I get such joy when I can sit under my gazebo, sip wine, and be in my zen in the summer. My house and backyard are genuinely my soul place – where I go to get refreshed and reenergized. And in the Spring, it just means my place of zen gets that much bigger!  

The point of doing all this work and maintenance is that I enjoy it. And so, while the list is long, I make sure that I don’t just do but allow myself to “be.”

Bliss Hints and Tips

  • For more details about yard maintenance, check out one of my favourite magazines, Family Handyman, for all the handy gurls out there.
  • For an organic approach to caring for your lawn, check out this blog with some good options.
  • And here’s a list that guides you through spring maintenance from the inside out from ”The Spruce”.

So What Will You Plant in your Garden This Year?

Mar 2, 2022 Live
So What Will You Plant in your Garden This Year?

Spring just generally brings people a lot of happiness. For those who live in snow covered locations, it’s always a refreshing time where the days are warmer and longer.

It’s also a time to plan out your garden for the year ahead. Each year, in around February, I start mapping out my gardens. A few years ago, I spent many weekends laying new flower beds and then also building a small, above-ground vegetable garden. I planted quite a few perennials and then peppered things with annuals for colour.

To make the shopping easier, I created a helpful costing spreadsheet that has helped me predict the costs and keep me focused when in the greenhouse. (Many gardeners know how going to a greenhouse without some focus can be a daunting task!) 

Update

I had a few questions about the free spreadsheet I included in this post. So I have included my own spreadsheet so folks can see what the finished product looks like. I use this spreadsheet as my checklist (as sometimes I don’t shop for all my plants in 1 place) and also know how much to budget for. If you are a nerd like me, I also look at what it costs me each year, so I know my trend year over year.

It has snowed up here recently (in mid April, good.ness) and so I usually have my plants by now. I hope to start my shopping in a couple of weeks and will show folks how I use my spreadsheet and stay organized. This spreadsheet has helped me turn my visit to the nursery to be an adventure that I look forward to versus being overwhelmed.

Bliss Reflections #3

Planning the colours and heights of all my plants for the upcoming season is good for my soul. I love planning but I love knowing that in a few short weeks, I will be outside working the soil and opening the garden for the spring and summer seasons.

Being around nature and watching your backyard come back to life is very exciting. My garden is a work in progress – more art in the eye of the beholder, and not yet down to a science. I think I like that imperfection anyway. Sometimes I have bald patches where I simply failed to water a new plant enough, to spots where I got the proportions wrong and have a tall delphinium in front of short aster. In other spots, I may overcrowd my plants and I lose some of the focus.

But each year, I try. I let go of perfection and appreciate that each year I learn what the garden wants in that particular spot. And then suddenly, there’s there one year, where you get an area right and you say to yourself “okay, now that works!” And I snap a picture of the spot where I think I got it right.

While I wouldn’t call my yard a masterpiece, it has given me many years as a peaceful retreat, and each spring season it forgives my errors from the previous year. Its a great place to ”just breathe” and become a human ”being”.

Bliss Finds and Facts

  • There are a lot of gardening apps and resources out there. Ones that I love using are the apps that help you determine “what plant this is”. For a list, check out this website from You Had Me at Gardening. Not only are the apps “tried and tested” but website has some great tips and resources for avid gardeners too! I love these apps because they spark the curiosity in me and I always learn more about the plants I have in my garden.
  • If you want to read more about the meditative effect gardening has or how to make your garden your own nirvana, check out some of these sites:
  • NEW – The ”go to” website that I have used over the years to help plan my garden design is Better Homes and Gardens. This site taught me how to layer the plantings so that I had colour throughout the seasons, and also created some ”depth” to the garden.
Springtime Flowers
Green on green gardening
Pot Gardeninb