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Journey of a Summer transformation of a wild garden to an older person’s garden.

A few weeks ago in our first gardening blog we talked about weeding as not being a chore, just a part of the process, and never to look more than the few feet in front of you lest the total amount needing to be done have you back in the house reading a book. I put that to the test this Summer with a stretch of dirt 22' long x 4' to 10' wide and then back to 4' that makes up what we call the Side Garden. My goal this year was too “older” the Side Garden.

“Older your garden” came up blank in a Webster's search, and AI did no better. Webster came up with “holding my horses”, “girding my loins”, “bending my ear” and “holding your peace”. None made sense but at least holding your peace resonated in a calming sort of way. AI called it “aging”, and “the feeling of experiencing age-related physical and emotional sensations”, which has some significance to oldering, but only in a peripheral way.

It's pretty simple. To older your garden is to make your garden easier to take care of, so, well, it’s easier to take care of.  There’s still some satisfying tending along with way, and way more looking and enjoying. Please click on the pictures for some suggestions for help on that.

The target area was originally a rock garden we didn’t know existed when we bought the house a long time ago. We thought it was just where the woods started. Then one day we felt those woods were encroaching on our outdoor living area, specifically the path to the pool (circa 1935 model imported from Canada in five fiberglass sections and fused together inground pool). It was a relic, admittedly wasn't going to be featured in any magazines), it but it worked great for us, the kids and grandkids for 40 years until being laid to rest (well, unlaid actually) in 2018. It worked until it finally didn’t work and got replaced by a 4 bay fenced in veggie garden. Such is the life of an old pool that’s outlived its purpose. Oh, the ignominy.

Anyway, back at the Side Garden, with the house grounds uncared for a number of years before we bought it the area grew inevitably to meld in with the woods, and the rock garden was hidden. As we peeled back the layers and cleared the area it turned out to have been 1935 (no surprise there) a rock garden, complete with stone steps and a gently descending group of rocks that led to a flat garden area. After we cleared it that time we created a beautiful mass of various wildflowers, a couple of butterfly bushes, some lilies, iris, and Rose of Sharon's, (uncontrollable weeds, but the flowers are white, blue, pink, purple. Yup, that's how many we have). That led to non-stop all season weeding, deadheading, and flowers lost to the hunger of deer and rabbits, which all used to be worth it, but isn’t any more.

So this Summer's project became to take this pretty big rock garden and older it, and I figured I’d share the journey with you. Please excuse some of the pictures, I’m olding my garden because I’m old, and I’m technoing this well as I can.

The goal? Start afresh with the wildflower garden, and change it from an all season care, deadheading, deer fighting and high weed area to a basically clean area, shrubs that flower over the course of spring and summer, and a few flowers that needed little care, even if the deer snipped a few of them.

Here’s where we started –


Notice the red tool in the center. The best for breaking up the top layer of soil to get to the weeds roots and remove them for good. Also great for breaking up the roots in hard to get to places.

I was merciless in removing anything that was in that garden, anything, with the exception of a couple of legitimate existing perennials, the butterfly bush's, 2 hydrangea's and some lilies and iris’ that didn’t stand in the way of the piece of land being a landing strip. By the end of summer the goal of simplicity in care got done.

Here's the strip, stripped. No mercy was shown.


Rules were that there would be bushes flowering from Spring to Fall, they had to stand shade, and they had to be deer resistant.

Here's the strip olded:



We planted 5, Ruby Spice, Hummingbird Summersweet, Shrub Arbusto, Tickseed for color and a break from shrubs and Poprocks. 

Not all will make it, we’ll find out next spring, but if not - 


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