Welcome to our blog, Seed to Sprout! This is a family project we decided to do because we enjoy gardening and we want to share that passion. This will also be a learning experience, not only as we grow as gardeners, but for the kids to learn to create their own website.

A little bit about us: we are a family of four; Mom, Dad, Niko & Sebastian (plus a betta fish named Midnight). We live in an almost 200-year-old Victorian house in New England. We love to travel, garden, bake, create art, and listen to music.

When we first moved into our house a few years ago, it had been empty for awhile and the yard was neglected. There was an area in the back that the previous owners had used as a junkyard, with a huge pile of old broken items, scrap wood and weeds. Pachysandra (an aggressive ground cover) had taken over large sections of the yard and garden beds, and there were a lot of trees and plants that needed love and attention.

The first year we focused on the house, and we left the garden mostly alone so we could see what would grow and get a sense of what was already there. We were thrilled to find there were mature, beautiful lilacs, peonies, a few roses, and a weeping cherry tree.

There was also a vegetable garden and a small cornfield, both of which had been there for years. Our neighbor, who is an avid gardener and has lived on this land his whole life (his family owned our house prior to the people we purchased it from) kept up the cornfield & garden while the house was empty. He has been invaluable in giving us advice on what grows well here and the history of the property.

This is a view of the vegetable garden, with the cornfield behind it:

We have 4 apple trees in a mini orchard:

After the first season, we started making improvements. We hauled away the pile of junk in the backyard and pulled out overgrown bushes that were covering up the front porch.

We tried to transplant the bushes to the side of the yard, but most didn’t take. We planted tulips, daffodils, and lilies in the front border where the bushes had been.

There was a big oval island in the middle of the backyard that had a few scrubby trees, 2 tea roses and a ton of poison ivy in it. Here is what it looked like:

We cleared it out, except for the roses, and we created a rose garden there. Here’s Niko in the rose garden when we first planted it:

Last year we expanded it, with 5 new David Austin roses, and an archway with clematis and climbing roses:

We cleaned out all of the pachysandra in the yard, and re-planted the flower beds. We built an art studio in the backyard and added a small garden in front of it. Here’s the art studio:

We planted flowering cherry trees, a magnolia, and two blue spruces. We had to take down several black walnut trees that had become brittle and dangerous and were dropping large branches into the yard.

We started working on the side border, and we planted Pieris Japonica “Mountain Fire” and Rhododendrons. We created a fire pit, and we lifted out two pieces of the original stone walkway on the side of the house and used them to make benches for the fire pit area. We planted a hosta garden where that section of the walkway had been.

We created a fairy garden near the back deck, and we are happy to say that a lot of fairies have moved in!

We have a lot of plans for this year and we are excited to share our progress and ideas, and maybe you will find something useful for your own garden! We hope to encourage other young gardeners to get out there and dig deep!

Click on the pictures to see them larger or view as a slideshow: