I started the gardens in 2001, and I have been adding to them ever since. I like to find interesting plants that not everyone grows, but I still have plenty of the traditional plants. I have some dedicated themed beds, there is the pig bed, which has many garden art pigs. I also have the hedgehog bed, which also has many garden art hedgehogs. I added a pond in 2020, made out of an old 800-gallon c
attle trough, which was our swimming pool as kids. They live all year in the pond with the help of trough heaters during the winter. During the summer I have the pond loaded with many types of pond plants. The neighborhood wildlife love to visit the pond for a drink or take a refreshing bath. We have even had frogs show up and use the pond. I also added a small waterfall pond to the hedgehog bed in 2022. I added that one to hear the sound of running water while sitting on the front deck. On July 9th, 2022, my gardens were one of eleven gardens featured in the Master Gardener Garden Tour. They dubbed my garden as The Organized Choas Garden. This was due to the fact that my gardens are more of a Cottage Garden style. But I also try to introduce old farm equipment and odd forms of art. I view my style of gardening as chaotic, but it all makes since in my head, so it is Organized Chaos. In April of 2021, I started keeping bees. My mom bought me my first hive, twenty-three days after I got that hive, I had to expand to a second hive. In 2022, I added two more hives, they were at my mom's house at first. But she decided chickens and bees were too much to work on by herself, so those hives moved back to my apiary. In 2023, I added two more hives to the apiary. In 2024, I plan to add four hives to the apiary and move all but a few of my hives to a farm south of Indianola, Iowa. Since nothing I do is every easy, I have decorated each of my hives in a different theme. It is always fun trying to come up with a new theme for each hive. You can see the different hive in my photo albums.
