Garden Timeline 2020

2020

The year 2020 was, of course, an unusual year for everyone, including gardeners. The Covid-19 pandemic resulted in closures of many businesses (although nurseries were exempted here in Iowa), and all garden events were canceled (including the Project GREEN Open Gardens Weekend, of which I am chair). And hardly anyone visited our gardens (only three times all year, close friends and family).

On August 10th, the Derecho windstorm blew through Indiana, Illinois and Iowa, causing immense destruction of trees along a path through the center of our state. Luckily for us, we were on the very south edge of the damage (ten miles north of us, people lost huge trees and were without power for days). We only had some large limbs down, and lost power only briefly.

I made only one re-designed garden area in 2020, and also continued to try to improve several other existing garden areas:

Tropical Garden

The garden area around my patio became much shadier after we built the pergola over it in 2018. I had long wanted a Tropical Garden area, so that's what I made in this area. I started the two Castor Oil Bean plants (Ricinus) from seed indoors, and they became humongous by the end of the summer.

The Tropical Garden was a great success, providing a lovely shaded place to eat outside -- we even had friends over to eat here in August, which was quite enjoyable during the Covid Year.

Pond Gardens

The Pond Gardens looked much improved in 2020, for the first time in several years. In 2018, I cleared them of the grass that had invaded them, I installed a metal edging around the paving stones in 2019, and replanted them in 2020 with annual petunias and dahlias, in addition to the roses and boxwoods that remained. This area has a well-kept, park-like feeling now (the two new benches helped with that too).

 

Garage West Bed

Here's another area that looked much better in 2020: behind my garage. This very long bed was completely infested with grass and weeds, so in 2018, I cleared it, and in 2019 planted a bunch of hostas that I moved and divided from the Yellow Garden. This bed looks SO much better and is easier to maintain, now that the hostas have filled in to crowd out weeds.

2021 >>