A lot happened in the first two months of 2025. I went from intense garden planning mode to cancelling seed orders and covering the soil with weed barrier. Why?
We bought an empty acreage. We prepared the house and yard for sale, finalized our building plans, and packed all of our belongings. After four days on the market at the end of the summer, we sold our house! We moved into our camper and dove head first into building on our new property. Looking back, I can’t believe so much happened in such a short amount of time.
Through the hustle and bustle of last year, the garden continued to be our favorite place to find calm. Our garden was full of wildlife, hardy perennials, and self-seeded annuals.
Wildlife in the Gardens
Early in the spring, the robins returned to the honeysuckle. I’m thankful that Mom and Dad Robin trusted us to get as close as we did!
After what always feels like too long of a wait, the bees danced onto the scene and began their work. We loved watching them and we discovered more bees than ever before sleeping on the cosmos and sunflowers.
The milkweed patch continued to do it’s thing, and so we had dozens of monarch caterpillars to observe. The big kids (and their cat-like reflexes) caught and inspected a lot of butterflies and moths. I didn’t plant a single seed last summer, but all of our favorite types of pollinators still showed up thanks to what did grow.
Favorite Perennials of 2025
A lot of perennials reached maturity last year. Here are a few of the plants that we got to enjoy:
PowWow® Wild Berry Coneflower
-Zones 3-9
-24” tall & 16” wide
-Full Sun
Fireworks Goldenrod
-Zones 4-9
-36” tall & 36” wide
-Full Sun
Major Wheeler Honeysuckle
-Zones 4-8
-96” tall & 144” wide
-Full Sun, Half Sun/Half Shade
Snow Lady Shasta Daisy
-Zones 5-9
-36” tall & 12”+ wide
-Full Sun/Part Shade
Common Milkweed
-Zones 3-9
-48” tall & 2” wide
-Full Sun
Goldsturm Rudbeckia
-Zones 3-9
-36” wide & 24” tall
-Full Sun
Annuals in the Gardens
You know what’s nice? Flowers that self-seed. I always look forward to volunteer sunflowers, marigolds, and cosmos. Last spring, exactly ONE zinnia grew from all of the seeds that dropped in 2024. In a less than ideal location, of course, which was the outside edge of the flower bed in the grass. We treated it like royalty to preserve it the entire summer. It was worth it, zinnias are just wonderful.
I can’t wait to get started on the gardens around our new acreage. Ahem, that is, as soon as construction of the house is complete. 🙂
What were your favorite plants last year?
-Kerri