A reflection on garden of 2011.

As I've nearly finished cleaning up the garden for another year, I pause to reflect on the good, the bad, and the ugly from this year's garden. Did I keep any of the promises I made to myself in my 2010 reflection!?

What I liked about this year's garden:

• All of my bulbs! Even though not nearly all of the 40 tulip bulbs I planted in the fall came up, the ones that did still made a grand entrance in spring and gave my front yard some colour while I waited for the perennials to grow
• The grand new planter I bought for my front door entrance. It was the perfect size, the flowers filled out nicely, and my steps felt less cluttered
• My new hose and watering wand that I got for Christmas and hooked to the front yard tap - waaaay less work than dragging the backyard hose back and forth
• The new perennial garden I planted in the backyard looks promising; we'll see what happens in the spring!
• Loved the plants I used in a lot of my containers: bright pink geraniums, blue salvia, impatians, an orange begonia, and so on. Perfect pops of colour.
• The kitchen garden provided a lot of produce for us this summer: lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, herbs, carrots. My onions didn't get very big, though
• The marigolds I planted around my kitchen garden seemed to help with the bug problem I had last year
• My water fountain! Best purchase this year

Some things I didn't like:

• Rennie, our new puppy, got at a few plants and planters
• The passion flower vine I grew in a pot never bloomed
• My roses all died - one died over winter and the other I tried to transplant, but it didn't like the move
• My astilbe plants didn't do well again this year. I think I will try to move one of my hydrangea bushes into that area, since they are getting bigger and two are a little close to each other
• A group of ants has decided to make an ant hill underneath my chives.
• A group of wasps has decided to build its hive inside of my garden shed. I've been stung twice already and have decided to wait until a good freezing to go back into it!
• I can't keep my houseplants alive - especially succulents!

Gardening is all about trial and error - I think that's part of the fun in it!

I'm always learning.

There's still a few things left to clean up and put away outside, but until next year I guess I'm left with magazines, pictures, and my imagination to keep my garden going through the winter.

Images from my garden of 2011.