Gardening in a zone 4 sandpile
I moved back to Michigan several years ago. Back home, but in a new part of the state. My new garden is now several years old. Everything is different here in Northern Michigan—the soil, the weather, the native plants. Even the sky looks different to me, fluffier if you will. Some of my experimentation worked out, some didn't. That's how gardens grow. A few of my favorite garden plants moved with me, a couple daylilies, some Lavendula 'Fred Boutin' (best cold weather lavender I've grown). Most were hardy perennials that made the transition from the heavy clay soil of St. Charles to soil that I consider the nearest thing to beach sand without water, also known as sugar sand, with little difficulty.
The first step in developing a garden is planning. Gardens are personal creations that are never finished. Some gardeners just plant and let the garden develop how it will. For me planning is an important aspect of fitting the garden and its plants to the site.
Planned gardens are often defined by location or purpose. There are shade gardens, cutting gardens, flower borders, vegetable gardens, herb knot gardens, water gardens, gardens devoted to flowers of a certain color, or to plants mentioned in the Bible or to those in Shakespeare's writing. The list is as long as gardeners' imaginations. Planning does more than provide good views, and beautiful, compatible plantings—it helps prevent mistakes like finding your only water spigot on the opposite side of the house from your water-thirsty garden.
I spent the first summer here appreciating and appraising what my new site had to offer. I took measurements and made rough drawings of the site. My yard has an old orchard planted on a hillside that falls into a hollow, and much of it will remain the same. I've left that area wild. Since I've found stands of both Big Blue Stem and Little Blue Stem growing there. They are the most common among the native American grasses, but often overlooked for gardens.
The cultivated garden is around the house. I'm now trying to reintroduce native wild flowers into the wild sites. Through the years of habitation by European immigrants, most of the native plants have disappeared. Gardens are true do-it-yourself projects. They involve periodic hard labor and, of course, time. Obstacles will crop up along the way and the plan will change, but that's part of the pleasure of developing a garden.
