Welcome Rainbowgirl!

I'd like to suggest "lasagna beds" for your heavy clay soil. I used this method on three different sites (sun, shade, pt.shade) in my heavy Ohio clay. When I started my lasagna beds, I put down cardboard and "built" the beds right over the top of the previous owners weed patch. It worked incredibly well. If you do a search on it for all forums, you'll come up with a lot of great info.

Best of luck,
PattiOh

Hi Melissa, welcome to the forum, it's nice to meet you. I have only front and side yards to garden too. And DH is still attached to his lawn...still working on him though. After 20 years he is starting to wear down esp. when he has to get out the lawn mower. My dog thinks garden beds are to sleep in....argh! Once they are growing well she stays out of them though. I remember how great it was to move into a new home and have a blank slate to work with. Have fun with your planning and gardening. I didn't know about lasagna beds until this spring so we did it the old fashioned way....lasagna beds sound much easier. You will find lots of help, suggestions and friends here.
Bonny

Welcome Rainbowgirl!!! I made a lasagna bed a few years ago and it worked great. I got the book out of the library. A lady named Pat Lanza wrote it or you can go to Amazon and order it there. Once you build up the bed you can plant in it right away and it sure saves your back from all that heavy digging!!!! However it's for you to decide to do since you have all that lovely ground!!! I just love Cottage gardening. I live out here in the Northeast but my sister lives in Bettendorf IA!!! I think IA is a lovely state!!! What kind of plants and flowers are you hoping to grow?

Welcome Rainbow girl ! This is a great forum and there are so many folks here with fabulous knowledge and a wonderful gift for sharing . I have just been making my first lasagna beds. One is a month old and I dug in it yesterday for the first time. I was amazed at the soil under the deteriorating newspapers. It is already getting soft and easy to work with. Hope you enjoy all your lovely new space. Caroline

Hey there Melissa...Oh, I remember Rainbow Girls, great organization! Welcome to the forum. Tell your intended DH that a happy gardener makes a happy wife, plus landscaping will increase the value of your home! Post a picture of your side yard and you will get plenty of suggestions. Look forward to hearing more from you. Vikki

Welcome Melissa!

I think you will find this forum to be a great source of inspiration. We've got some really talented, creative people here.

Ditto on the lasagna beds. I've been doing them for several years now and think that is definitely the way to go.

One word of advice - Please don't stress on doing everything at once. Take it slow and let it evolve. :-)

We're glad you're here!
Marilyn

Welcome rainbow girl! so nice you are here. This is a wonderful forum. It makes gardening even that much more fun. I have three orange cats that think plants are to chew, beds are to lie in and flowers are to attack. So I sympathize!
Good luck with your garden and keep us posted on your progress!
Sarah

Hi RainbowGirl. I also have a small space - a long narrow urban backyard, 10' wide and 40' long. I am also trying to cram a lot into it. I will post some pix when I figure out how.

My biggest advice is to Pace Yourself. Or you can end up with a lot of messy almost-done projects that add up to disappointing look.

I had to take it slow - really busy household with kids that aren't fond of garden slave labor. I pick 1-3 projects per season. I had to work on my patience. I wanted a great cottage garden immediately!

The first year, I dug out the old overgrown shrubs and took out the over-done concrete edging, planted a few annuals, and combated Canadian Thistle. The second year I re-sodded part of the yard, defined planting areas, and planted more perennials and some annual veggies. This year, I added brick edging, dug a bigger plot for a fall veggie garden, and have been figuring out how to get the back of the yard to produce more year-round color. Still figuring out how to prune and maintain the roses that came with the yard.

My ideas for your yard:

I would think about ways to break up the huge white reflective wall of the house - vinyl lattice trellis, maybe. Establish some roses and shrubs that will go vertical.

The narrow end - I would put my "sitting room" there, away from the street. Plan for seating, so you can relax and admire you work after a long day of messing in the dirt. Maybe behind a few taller perennials that will give you a little privacy as you relax.

Define your property line - and give yourself room to walk along it without treading on your neighbor's grass - maybe a brick path to your sitting area? Give your immediate neighbor something pretty to look at - it helps when you need to do something disruptive and messy - or you need to talk to them about keeping their kid/dog from ripping up your stuff. Fences make good neighbors - but fencing your whole little space will make it all-about-the-fence. "Imply" a boundary with vegetation. I once saw a beautiful knee-high hedge out of germander. (I don't like the way boxwood smells.)

--Tracy

Hi glad to have you. I am new here myself although long time gardener. Wish I had known about lasagna beds years ago! I also have 2 golden retrievers so know about your troubles.
We fenced off our gardens this spring so we can rehab them from all the mud wrestling our dogs have done. the idea is to train them to keep out ( yeah keep laughing, gotta try right?)Sue

Welcome to the Cottage, Melissa! How wonderful that you have bought your first home. We'll do our best to help you with your gardens. Please post a pic when you can.

Diana

- On lasagna beds: I just finished making a "dry bed" for my drought loving plants, pentstemmons, lavender, russian sage, and it turns out I did a lasanga bed without knowing, it is right next to an underground electrical junction box, so i removed the sod and about 2 inches of clay, then layed lots of newspaper down and filled on top with a sandy soil mix. Who knew!

- On my DH and his precious lawn, I have already worn him down in they past year to having a stand of ornamental grasses to disguise a drainage culvert on the front corner of our lot - i keep adding new ones, and he seems to like it - reed feather grass, zebra grass, blue festuca and orange sedge so far : )

-On the plants I like, so far in my proto-cottage area I have several types of daylillies, echinachea, black eyed susan, hardy lillies, budleia, columbine, several types of salvia, russian sage, lavender, pentstemmons, pink fountain guara grass, parsley, variegated weigela (happy dance!- 50% off!), delphinium, and honeysuckle. I like pretty much everything except traditional geraniums and DH really dislikes peonies. I LOVE artemesia or silvermound, my who dun it dahlias - both of which are in a raised bed by the front door, and I am absolutely obsessed with my 9 little heather plants, they are the first and last thing i check every time I am outside.

-On taking it slow, LOL, I have a 3 to 5 year plan! my DH still says I work too hard at it though, Every spare minute for the past three months, no kids right now, so I can do that.

I will have to start a new thread on what i have gotten done in the first year of my project, it would be too long here.

Melissa

Congratulations on your new home! Welcome to the warmest, friendliest group of gardeners you'll ever meet. Don't hesitate to ask for help, offer your own tips and discoveries. And, of course, we'll all want to see photos of your progress and results (go over to the gallery to browse a bit -- you'll see gardens in all stages of development).

Gardening is a journey, so enjoy the ride and have lots of fun. No matter how knowledgeable and experienced, I think all gardeners tweak things over and over again! If we didn't, we'd be finished with gardening and what fun is that? :-)

Cameron

Hi Rainbowgirl!
DH and I are in our first home of 2 1/2 yrs. and I can definitely relate to your excitement.
along with all these great ideas you've been given, I'd also like to recommend that you check out the Winter Sowing forum. Great group of people there too and it's an awesome way to have a lot of plants for very little money and you are at a great time to begin reading up and planning for the upcoming winter season!
Have fun and keep us posted!
Stephanie

Welcome Melissa ~ This is a wonderful forum with great people. Have fun, don't stress, and do what you can do at any given time. Gardens are never finished, they are a continual work of art in progress.

FlowerLady

Hi Melissa

Welcome - I lurk more than post but I too did a lasagna bed and really think it is a great route to go - heavy clay soil with hard packed grass gave way to incredibly rich soil that now has roses and some perennials planted. As for small spaces - I have 17 x 17.5 ft to work with in my townhouse back yard - needless to say the maintenance man is thrilled when I see a new plant that "I must have" because something has to be removed to make space and I give it to him to plant on the "common property". Do pace yourself tho' cause especially with small spaces you have to think things through - at least I find that I do

Fern

Hi Melissa,

We moved into our dream spot 4 years ago, and there were only 4 peony plants & a big stand of overgrown lilacs on the place. I had split some of my plants from our old home & moved them to a temporary holding bed. We also did lasagna beds - I used the moving boxes.

We didnÂt have a lot of money to spend on the garden, so I knew IÂd have to start stuff from seeds. I had gathered some seeds for myself & to trade with  mostly from friends & public places, but I didnÂt have a lot of variety. I went on the seed swap site, and offered what I had & mentioned that I had just moved to my new place. The people there are amazing  lots of them offered to send me seeds as a house-warming gift or for just the cost of a SASE (self addressed, stamped envelope). I then went to the Wintersowing forum to learn how to WS. There is also a vibrant seed swap on that forum too. So, IÂve been able to fill in with wintersown plants. I hope this helps you out.

All the best to your new home,
Gail

Welcome rainbow girl - There are posts on this forum regarding tilling and lasagna gardens. The link is below. If you scroll down to "agrowingpassion"s description of how to prepare a lasagna bed, it is cut to the chase. You do not have to dig up the sod beforehand. Just cut it very short to begin with and be sure to use 6 to 8 layers of newspaper as your foundation. My post, which follows agrowingpassion's, is the result of a lasagna bed begun in fall of 2005, and one I just got going this year. (I forgot about posting in the Gallery - my bad).

You will get so much help and encouragement on this forum so don't be shy!

Here is a link that might be useful: forum on tilling/lasagna beds

Hi Melissa, welcome to the cottage! Congrats on your new house. I'm sure you will find loads of great suggestions here. Everyone in the cottage is so helpful and best of all- they post the best photos!

My hubby and I used to live in a trailer, so I definitely know about gardening in small spaces. You CAN achieve a lush look, it just takes time and patience.

Good luck!

Tracy

Hi Melissa and welcome to the forum. Don't fret your small space. Most of us would garden in a fish tank if we had to (and it would be beautiful!). One of the beautiful things about cottage gardening is that you can give a very small space a richly textured, cozy feel. You're going to love it!

I think you are wise to give your fiance a couple of years with his lawn. It's about the end of the second year of pushing a lawn mower that most hold-outs cave. I'm slowly but surely eating away at my remaining grass using this method.

Come back often and share the progress.

Steven