Your New Landscape: What to Expect in the Years to Come

Unlike traditional landscaping, natural gardening isn’t a one-time thing. Instead, it’s about dancing with nature, watching the garden mature year by year. Here’s what you can expect from a landscape installed by Grounded.

Sleep, creep, leap

You’ve likely heard this phrase. In the first year, our gardens seem to sleep. In the next, they grow a little – they creep. Then in the third, they leap and your garden becomes the landscape you dreamed of when you planted it.

Year one: roots first

Plants are like us. When we move to a new neighbourhood, it takes time to put down roots. That’s what young plants focus on first: developing their root system so they’re set up for success in the future.
Mind you, different plants have different strategies. One group of plants we use are called ruderals – these are plants that live fast and die young. Because of this move-fast-and-conquer strategy, these plants put their effort into flowering and creating seeds so they can create more plants.

We add a few ruderals into our designs so you get the benefits of this fast action. Plants such as Black-eyed Susan usually flower in the first year, giving you some colour while the rest of the landscape is just settling in.

Year two: the shift begins

Your plants are now in the creeping stage. You should notice them as bigger than the year before, but they still won’t be at their full potential.

I call this the adolescent stage because your garden is beginning to figure out what it is. There will still be some ruderals around (and maybe some have seeded into new plants) but the long-lived perennials are starting to form some kind of community.

Year three: the ecosystem emerges

We’re now in to the leap stage, when most landscapes start to appear more “finished” in our minds. Most of the long-lived perennials are large and flowering. The shrubs too are starting to get into their stride, although it might take a few more years until they are as large as you might hope.

With all the ground covered, the garden should thrive with minimal management. If we’ve done our job well, the landscape is as close as can be to a functional ecosystem – a self-sustaining community of native plants and the wildlife they support.

Year four and beyond: dancing with nature

There should be a rhythm to your landscape now. You know what to expect; you know when each plant emerges, when it flowers, and when it sets seeds.

That’s not to say it’s a static thing. Nature is never static; it changes constantly. Some things outlive their roles and fade away, others take centre stage.

If left completely alone, ecological succession will take place; your landscape will become what it has always wanted to be. In the Highlands, that might be forest.

So this is when the gardener observes and makes changes. We remove the things we don’t want and encourage the things we do. At the same time, we allow nature to express itself, within limits we’re comfortable with.

Always changing, always growing

Creating a native garden in Haliburton means committing to nature’s pace. It’s about embracing the journey and fostering a real connection with the land.

This approach not only creates beauty around our homes and cottages but contributes to the ecological health of our entire community. It really is gardening for life.