Just moved? Build a Temporary Garden at Your New Home

Why Consider a Temporary Garden at Your New Home

It’s a smart plan to set up a temporary garden at your new home when you have just moved because you don’t really understand the “lay of the land” in your garden yet. Understanding your garden takes at least a year. A YEAR!?!?! Yes. A year. An example of this is that the sunshine changes throughout your garden. In the winter you might have direct sun in some places, creating micro-climates, while in the summer you could have the opposite. Understanding the sun, water, and other conditions on your property takes a while. 

With this in mind, transitioning to Arizona from Illinois has been more than a year of challenge. While we have fixed up the interior of the home, we still need to get outside to do some landscaping. My garden, at least right now, is limited to a flat stone yard and a few palm trees. Leafy greens are happily growing on the inside of my home, and vegetables will be growing outside soon. However, if anyone understands the need for a temporary garden in your new home, it is me. It will take a while to get the rest of the garden organized. I love Mesa, Arizona, yet my garden plan has needed a kick-in-the-pants for a while. 

Temporary Garden at Your New Home? Here’s the SOLUTION!

My temporary solution to keep a bit of garden while I’m developing the landscape is to install container gardens. This enables me to create a temporary garden at my new home that looks pretty. I’ll keep the containers and move them to different locations once I decide on a permanent landscape plan.

Utilize a Smart Soil Plan for the Garden Containers

First I planted a mix of cactus and agave in a special soil mix that my local independent garden center assures me is perfect for desert plants. Here’s the thing – I have NO IDEA what varieties of desert plants I have. It’s an experiment. I’m new. I’m clueless. I will learn. There will be dead plants, but I’ll figure it out. It’s important to ask your local independent garden center or horticultural expert for some advice on what soil works best in the area.

Most of the plants’ temporary garden at my new home have been gifts from friends. I threw them in the pots a few weeks after I moved in. Of course, we’ll see if I can learn how to take care of them well in their new location. The view from my bedroom is off this glorious row of plant happiness reflecting in the blue pool and it makes me smile whenever I look out my window.

Utilize Art for Your Garden Containers

Utilizing art as a container filler can really amp up the look of your temporary garden. The swimming Fish-in-the-Garden trout art was originally featured swimming across my no-mow lawn in Illinois, but looks fantastic swimming across the desert, don’t you think? The art was created for me by Tyson Weiss and is from his Ceramic Garden Trout line.

I mixed and matched the Weathered Terracotta and Old Bronze from the garden containers I had at the old house and lined them alongside my new swimming pool in this agave and cactus salute. Below (from left to right) you see the result.

• Delano Planter 26-Inch – Old Bronze
• Juno 20″ Planter – Weathered Terracotta
• Madison Planter – 20″ Weathered Terracotta
• Dorchester Square 18″ Planter – Weathered Terracotta
• TruDrop Self-Watering System 20″ – Old Bronze
• Brunello Planter – 20″ Weathered Terracotta
• Pleat 19” Planter– Weathered Terracotta
• Festonada 18″ planter – Weathered Terracotta
• Delano 20” Planter – Old Bronze

Want a beautiful temporary garden at your new home while you learn your light and watering needs? Plant up a container garden and wait a full season before doing anything crazy with the rest of your landscape. A little caution can bring a much better landscaping result over the long term.