Putting an in-ground garden into our new backyard was something I’ve been wanting to do since before I even knew this house existed. As a long-time renter, I’ve made do with container gardens of all kinds, but the idea of a little cottage-y garden that was full of flowers and whimsy has always been a goal of mine.

I used my garden hose to mark out a spot and lived with that for a day or so. I wanted to be able to see the garden from the windows in the house, but I didn’t want the garden to take up too much playing real estate from my kids. My garden budget is very tight as well, so I didn’t want to have to buy a lot of soil right away.

The most unexpected joy of starting this garden was the family time it has fostered. My girls began to wander by, curious about my little project. Conversations bloomed over plans, sharing knowlegde, stories, and taking their suggestions. We agreed that it should be a butterfly/fairy garden and we added a tiny wooden bridge for said fairies.

Our backyard is full of rocks, so finding a garden edge was as easy that. What was less easy than finding the rock was carrying it from all corners of the yard. When we planted our two apple trees, we unearthed a pile of fist-sized rocks to use, and there are also random rocks scattered along the fence-line. It ended up being enough to mark the border of the garden, thankfully, and it was completely free.

Next I shoveled out the grass, ten minutes at a time. It was so hot during this time, so I wanted to go slow as to not traumatize my children by passing out. This process took a while, and the grass and bindweed started to creep back in after just a few days. I decided to buy some rubber garden border and use that to help the situation. That came in the mail and my husband helped me with the placement of that.

After removing as much grass as I could, I rolled out brown paper and laid out cardboard boxes. Little by little, I had been buying bags of garden-bed soil, and at this point I had about four big bags to add to the garden. Once that was done, my daughters and I scattered zinnia seeds from my mom in one end. We stuck an oblisk trellis in the same end and planted expired pea seeds to see what would come up. Then, I took $35 and bought some plants. A lot of them were on sale, because it was so late in the season. I have a small Russian sage plant on the opposite side of the zinnias and some yellow Echinacea as well. I popped a few annuals in for some instant color.

For the finishing touch (for now), I added a little sleeping stone dragon my kids have affectionately named Rodney.

It’s September now, and yesterday we made a small bouquet of three zinnias, grown from seed in our own little garden. Just this morning we spotted a butterfly among the flowers. Gardening is a lesson in patience. I have done a good job for now, but oh, the plans I have for this space. I find solace in understanding that growth is not linear. It’s messy, unpredictable, and deeply rewarding.