Playground to Garden

In 2005, we moved to central Massachusetts with a 3 year old in tow. Had to get his playground set up. We had a nice flat backyard with not much but grass, so I laid out a wood border, put down landscape fabric and had a big truckload of playground mulch delivered. The playground was well loved by him and many friends in the years following, but soon enough he outgrew the playground. What to do with it???

I tried giving it away but had no takers, so down it came, the cedar would make good firewood :). Time to make a nice big garden! To start with, I would have a sitting area put in, with some trees and a small vegetable garden area. Here goes!

After I got the swingset taken down and moved out, the landscapers could start work. The paths and sitting area were installed, rock border put in (in retrospect these rocks should have been much bigger, they have disappeared now…) and trees and ferns planted. At the time, I was not knowledgeable about native plants and their benefits, that came later, but I did get one native tree, Eastern Redbud (Cercis canadensis). Other trees I planted were: Paperbark maple (Acer griseum), Coral Bark Japanese Maple (Acer palmatum ‘Sango-kaku’), Seven-sons tree (Heptacodium miconioides) and the first plants were Eastern hayscented fern (Dennstaedtia punctilobula). These ferns had starting growing by themselves when the swingset was still up and I thought they were pretty, so I kept them and put them back in, surrounding the seating area. These are native ferns but, oh my… very aggressive, I am in the process of trying to remove them now as they are taking over.

Here are a few images of how it has progressed through the years and how the ferns are taking over :(. I started with a vegetable garden near the back side (see the cage over the tomatoes in the picture above), but I never have too much luck with them and now just have some blueberry plants back there :). Below is a gallery of plants from 2024 in the garden. I have marked native/near native/nativars with an * after the name in the caption. I love going out here and sitting and listening to the birds and enjoying being outside in my ever evolving playground garden.

Thanks to Ryan Wood and team, from RJW Land Management for setting up this garden for me 🙂