When I started this blog, the 'Bloodgood' Acer palmatum had looked like this just the summer before:
Three years later it looks like this:
When I started, the sourwood, Oxydendrum arboreum looked like this in the fall:
Last fall it looked like this, after I moved it to a new spot. It's not a fast grower, but I'm pleased with its progress:
When I started blogging, the black gum, Nyssa sylvatica, looked like this just leafing out:
In the fullness of summer three years later, it looks like this:
When I started this blog, there was a lot of lawn.
Now, three years later, there is a nice sitting area and new gardens surrounding it. There is still a lot of lawn, but not as much.
When I started, I put a big irregular bed in the middle of the yard and barely filled it with random plants.
After three years, it has filled in, compensating for the random design by mounding together.
In fact, after three years, its very lack of any plan is a plus, especially in the fall.
One of the biggest challenges I had the year that I started this blog was to reforest the hillside in back of our house, and screen us from the houses and busy road that ran up the small ridge behind us.
Three years later the entire hillside is transformed. You can't tell there is a road behind the trees now, or houses or traffic.
And in the process of creating that screening, a beautiful meadow and little forest has emerged.
Not everything has improved and grown since I began my blog. When I started I had four butterfly bushes -- two yellow ones, Buddleia x weyeriana 'Honeycomb' and two low, tidy dwarf ones called 'Lo & Behold Blue Chip'.
But now, three years later, they are all gone. I lost all of them in one winter.
I've had so many other losses too. Trees, shrubs, perennials, many are gone, some are replaced. But the remarkable thing about keeping a blog going is that I can always go back into the archives and see not just a photo of a plant, but a write up about something that appealed to me about it, or the experience I had growing it. And it's all instantly searchable.
A blog is just a journal, with pictures. I was never good at keeping written diaries. Blog journaling, with pictures, easy searchability, an encouraging audience of readers and commenters, and a community of other gardeners, turned out to be ideal for me.
Three years. When I started, who knew I'd still be at it now.
To all of you: thanks for reading!!
