Last December, on a grey and gloomy day much like today, I wrote out my goals for the garden for 2015. Re-reading that blog post a year later, I’m amazed to see how much of what I set out to do I actually accomplished.
Discovering this was a big surprise, but after only a few minutes of thought I realized that it wasn’t because 2015 was such a productive year but because I set myself rather modest goals. (Who, me? Surely not!)
I wanted to make the ‘staircase’ on the China Terrace more prominent, and I did, transforming it from this…
to this.
I modified the yin yang, replacing worn-out plants with Artemisia ‘Silver Mound’ and adding a painted tree trunk in the circle on one side.
I completed a major piece of sculpture, a project I didn’t mention in my plans for 2015 for fear of jinxing it, but something I knew I wanted to do.
The big project for the year didn’t happen as I had planned. It definitely wasn’t what I announced it would be — a series of stone-filled gabion baskets to strengthen the straight lines in the Lower Garden — but it was a version of that idea. Instead of using the gabion baskets in the Lower Garden, I used them in the parking area, where they replaced a tumbling down stone wall. The change transformed the area, from this…
to this.
I was delighted with the new look when work finished in early summer, and I remain delighted. Every time I look at this wall, I smile inside.
Reading what I planned for 2015 and looking at what I actually did, I am quite pleased with myself. I am particularly pleased when I consider the amount of travelling I did this year and the many wonderful gardens I visited. Mind you, I’m not so pleased when I read what I planned to do in 2014, that I didn’t manage to do that year or the next.
But such is life. And who knows, maybe in 2016 I will.
What about you? What are your garden goals for 2016? And if you set goals for this year, did you accomplish what you set out to do?