Hi GPODers!
As we barrel towards the holidays and another great gardening season is in our rearview mirror, it’s a great time to go through our photos from this year and reflect on the successes and failures. One gardener who is doing just that is Kathleen Shelman in Port Townsend, Washington. We’ve seen favorite selections from Kathleen’s garden a couple of times in the past (Kathleen’s Favorite Gold Plants and Blues from Kathleen’s Garden), but last year we were introduced to her brand new meadow garden (Check out that post here: Kathleen’s New Meadow Garden in Washington). After its second season of unbelievable growth, she has shared the changes that have taken place from the first blooms of early summer to the grasses and seed heads that keep interest going into fall. See what she loved about the garden this year, and the edits she is already planning for the next growing season.
Hello! This is the second summer for my new garden in Port Townsend, Washington. A little over a year ago, we downsized from our 1 acre garden outside of Portland, Oregon and moved north to a quarter acre city lot. The back half was mine to landscape. The entire lot was covered with failing wild cherry trees, blackberries, and wild roses. We removed them all, tilled the sandy soil and added several truckloads of compost. I divided the garden into three sections, a vegetable garden, a meadow and a shade garden. I brought many plants with me from my previous garden so the garden was basically free to me. The first picture shows the meadow section, with my grid plan applied with spray paint. In the meadow, I planted the more informal perennials from my previous border and a variety of grasses.
In the first summer, everything came up and was quite robust, but not everything flowered. The second summer, everybody showed up.
In the early part of the summer, the perennials were the most visible, but as the season progressed the grasses began to make their presence felt.
I particularly liked this combination of ‘Loraine Sunshine’ false sunflower (Heliopsis ‘Helhan’, Zone 3–9) and ‘Plant World Jewels’ dierama (Dierama ‘Plant World Jewels’, Zone 7–10).
I had originally planned to allow only orange, yellow, and blue/purple flowers in the meadow, but I have loved having the queen of the prairie (Filipendula rubra, Zone 3–8), particularly as the seed heads last long after the flowers are gone.
By summer‘s end, the grasses were the main feature. I had originally planned to leave all seed heads until February, but have found that I needed to remove some of the over-seeders.
The seed heads of the actaea proved to be a delight, and the birds seem to love them.
I have enjoyed this garden immensely, and look forward to seeing what it will do in the future. My original goal of staking nothing and editing nothing has already been shown to be unworkable. I will always need to cut back some of the earlier perennials to save the lives of those who come later, and I am also going to need to stake up some of the more robust plants and grasses so they don’t overwhelm their neighbors. But overall, I’m happy with the way this has worked out!
Thank you so much for this fabulous update on your garden, Kathleen! It’s a great insight into these kinds of plantings to hear how your plan is working or not working, and seeing the gorgeous results.
Did you make any major garden changes this year? Maybe you planted up some new beds this spring, or made some maintenance changes this summer that resulted in bigger blooms and happier plants. Let us know in the comments how your growing season went, or consider sharing a reflection on your 2025 garden with the blog! Follow the directions below to submit photos via email, or send me a DM on Instagram: @agirlherdogandtheroad.
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