Bloom House Garden Transformation

When we bought our house in Walla Walla last year, it was perfect because it had everything I wanted, a south facing back yard, a north facing front and a horrible landscape I wouldn’t feel guilty to completely tear out! I proceeded to do that, to create a blank canvas that I could start designing as a test garden. My main edible garden design experience had been in warmer zones than ours (zone 7), so I was curious to see what I could grow, including ornamentals and flowers. I’ve been tracking the progress with images and hope to create an inspirational post for people to see what’s possible!

Here are some before shots around the time that we bought the house:

Before photo of the back yard, full of over grown lilacs and a huge overgrown Elm tree.

Here is another image of the back yard where you can see it was mostly ugly lawn with some old wine barrel planters.

Another image of the back yard. It was completely full of various sized pavers and rocks, which we had to remove. We also took out the Elm tree, three over- grown lilacs, and an old pond that no longer held water.

The day the Elm tree got removed! It lightened up the entire back yard which is what we wanted so we can grow plenty of things to eat and flowers!

Here I am in May planting the first bed! I removed some of the grass, took out a ton of weeds and started planting my berries. There are 3 types of cane berries; red, golden and marion berry, and 3 types of blueberries; Sunshine Blue, Bountiful Blue and Peach Sorbet. I added some fun flowers to attract pollinators like dianthus and scabiosa and a yucca gloriosa and some variegated iris pallida for texture variation.

Here is a picture of the bed with the berries after it got irrigated and mulched. The plants are still babies, but looking very happy. We also planted the front of the bed with Alpine strawberries which made fruit all summer and fall that we snacked on everyday!

This is the same fence line with the berries, just facing the other direction and I took advantage of this south facing nook of the house to plant a more frost sensitive Fig called Tiger Panache. When it gets a bit larger, I will espalier it on side of the house. Also in this bed is a Callies Memory peony and three different roses: Cinco de Mayo, Plum Perfect and Easy Does It.

This is after I started planting the perimeter beds in the rest of the garden. I haven’t laid out the pathways and the veggie beds yet, but that is next. On the garage wall, there is a Red Sentinel columnar apple, and a Santa Rosa plum that I will espalier as it grows into a vase shape. There are two climbing roses, one at each end: Garden Sun and Variegata de Bologna. There are also pollinator attractors / culinary herbs that include a rosemary, two types of anise hyssop, an African blue basil, and a Lady Plymouth rose geranium (these last two are annuals). Also included is a Neptune rose, iris and all fronted by Platinum Blond lavender and blue Fescue.

This is after I removed most of the grass (there’s still some to go), but got the greenhouse built and some more fruit trees in, including a Bosc pear, a quice, an almond and a Winesap apple. There are also more roses: Fragrant Cloud, Angel Face, Moonlight in Paris, and Sun Sprite. Some of the other fun plants in here include a great variegated Abelia called Magic Daydream, some heirloom Dianthus and a really cool Sambucus that grows super upright called Black Tower.

Here is later in the early fall. You can see how much the perennials have grown in and started doing their layering. I have laid out the paths with form stakes and string so you can see where the future veggie beds will be and in between will be a very small basalt gravel.