Big Picture. Small Picture.
Start with a five-year plan to watch the landscape grow up together.
Welcome to the Art of Growing Food newsletter. I write about artful growing tips for cooks who love to garden. You are receiving this newsletter because you are a free or paid subscriber. Thank you! - Ellen Ecker Ogden
January 14, 2024
Hello Everyone.
In 2003, I moved from a ten-acre farm in rural Vermont to a tiny lot in the heart of a village. At first, it was a relief to not have the constant daily care of farm animals or the chore of weeding a large vegetable garden. I welcomed change, and I sought out new ways to spend my time. Yet it took only one winter in my new location to realize that I had to have a garden. Which is how I came to devise my five-year plan.
At the time, five years felt like a long stretch. It wasn’t clear if I would stay in this location, but while I was here, I might as well do the best with what I had.  That first winter, I spent many hours looking out the window at the rather bleak, empty yard. The previous owners put more time into fixing up the house on the inside while ignoring the outside. After identifying what was there; a thin crabapple tree, a few old lilacs, and a small, raised bed, I thought I might try my hand at landscape design.
I had no formal training, and truth be told, very little garden experience. My husband had been the gardener in the family, in a rather territorial way. As a counterbalance, I honed my skills as a cook, and we each claimed our expertise. We ate well, and this seemed to be a good arrangement. In truth, gardening looked like hard work, and I’d rather be in the kitchen, music on, feeding my soul with new recipes.
But times were different, and now I was preparing to be both the gardener and the cook. With a blank piece of paper, an ordinary #2 pencil, and a ruler, I first located south. My south faced my neighbor’s house, a tall three-story building with peeling paint and a broken slate roof. A line of trees stood between us on their side, as well as an overrun bed of Bishop’s weed that knew no boundaries.
My five-year plan began with a drawing of the big picture view of the landscape, getting to know the obstacles, and visualizing the flow of the land. A sloped backyard that bordered on swamp, shade in the southeast corner, and an ancient apple tree that was in survival mode, with a mostly rotten trunk and a curved spine. Â This became my focal point and eventually the sweet spot of my whole landscape.
The plan was a rough draft and didn’t matter if the measurements on my drawing were accurate, so I didn’t bother to use graph paper. I drew in the house, the driveway, and the front steps then created various garden rooms that circled the house. A place for sitting in the evening, a border full of sunflowers for the birds, and a small parterre kitchen garden to the south surrounded by a green hedge to create privacy.
There was already a garden shed on the property, and remarkably the only thing I did not change. It remains the center of activity, ideally located for storage and coming and going many times a day tending to garden chores. While I had no clue what I was doing, my vision was to create a whole landscape that all fit together as one, and to create smaller designs within.
I knew that this land had history, and I was determined to leave it better than how I found it. The five-year plan allowed me time and budget to take it in stages. Gardening is largely self-taught, yet we all have to start somewhere. My best teachers came from visiting lots of gardens, always taking a sketchbook for ideas.
As I prepare to teach a five-week program on kitchen garden design for Longwood Gardens, I am reminded of my five-year plan. Our gardens all start with a visualization of the future, and it’s key to develop not just the structure with paths, beds, and plants, but be able to picture how it will feel when entering the space. How it resonates on a deeper level, and how it will make others feel, too.
Looking back on my original sketch, it formed a basic outline for me to follow as I plodded along. It is the way I pictured it would be in five years, yet it has now been 20. I am glad that I took my time, and didn’t follow the planting scheme entirely. And while I don’t feel like I will ever fully master gardening, or landscape design for that matter, I am glad that I never will. There is always more to learn and change about our gardens.
From my garden to yours,
Ellen O.
