Garden Muse

When asked to write about my garden mentor or muse...I was a bit stumped at first. Of course, I have some advisors that I can turn to in a pinch but I didn't really grow up learning about how to care for plants or a garden.

This lady changed it all.

Her name is Alys Fowler and her brilliant show "The Edible Garden" had me captivated. Have you seen it??

This is one of 6 episodes. I devoured them all. Back to back. It really made me excited to get out and put my hands in the dirt.

Since then (Jan. or Feb. of this past year), I have been striving to create a garden space of my own. 

Alys sparked the fire but Pinterest has helped fill my imagination. In the past few months, I've trolled and trolled for lovely images of other folks gardens, courtyards and patios. 

It's funny, when you don't really have any gardening experience or any specific person to turn to...it's really hard to know where to start. For this, I turned to the awesome BBC series, "How to be a Gardener" with Alan Titchmarsh.

Now that I am having to re-invision my space (because of those pesky gophers), I'm leaning on Pinterest for ideas of how to create a beautiful space that will work for me, without being destined for ruin.

First of all, instead of mainly dirt, I will need to switch to mainly gravel and/or a bark mulch. Before I was planning much more of an English Garden feel.

I love how this is lush and mainly in raised beds. There is gravel covering all of the exposed areas. I also love the large decorative urns.

I am still determined to grow vines...so I will need to plant them in gopher baskets or pots.

On Pinterest? Follow me or my gardening board for more inspiration.

I also heavily rely on the blog-o-sphere for tutorials and advice. In the beginning of my research, I devoured back articles on You Grow Girl, Mr. Brown Thumb and Gardenista.

Apparently, it takes an online village to mentor & inspire a gardener. Without knowing any of them, they have meant more to me than they'll ever know.

This post was written in response to the prompt "Write about your garden mentor or muse", part of the Grow Write Guild on You Grow Girl.  It is the fourth prompt in the series.