Gardening: Current & Dream {Allie}

Gardens. I love them & yet over the past 3 years, I have been forced to find alternative ways to bring a little more "garden" into my life. Apartment dwelling in Portland keeps plant lovers like me on my toes with challenges like:
No Windows - Our current abode has one window in the bedroom and solar tubes in the kitchen that do not let in adequate sunlight for plants. My dragon tree and I found this out the hard way.
No Space - We are so lucky right now to have a patio, but in our previous apartments we had no outdoor space at all. I always claimed every window ledge, book case or area of the floor that got any sunlight for the plants.
An Indoor Cat - I love our cat. And she loves our plants. She chews on the leaves, digs in the pots for fun and even uproots and drags off little succulents from time to time. I don't blame her, I am sure they are tasty herbs and fun to chew on, but the plants did not appreciate it.

This is my current garden that I planted by hand (bag of dirt is in the shot!) The succulents are starts from my Grandmother's house in Coos Bay and the Fig Tree and Huckleberry bush were finds at a local gardening store called City Farm.

This is my dream garden - 

My dream garden is wild, natural and vibrant. I really want to be able to produce enough vegetables, herbs and flowers to sustain us through each season and share with family and friends. My style of garden is not one that is overly manicured or perfect. I like it when a garden feels like you stumbled upon it in the woods; an untouched pocket of nature. I am also an advocate of no-lawn gardening. In Portland, many people opt out of lawns in exchange for indigenous plants that need less care and water to survive. This is a very sustainable choice as well as one that gives you that "wild" feel that I love so much.

Here is a list of my {must haves} - 

- Raised beds for the produce

- Lavender bushes: dry them in bundles and use in a multitude of ways {like these}

- Wild flowers that grow from reseeding each year

- Succulents, succulents succulents

- Wood Fences

- Hydrangea bushes that were grown from starts off my Grandmother's bushes

- A cute garden shed that Jeff and I build by hand

- A trellis wrapped in any beautiful climbing flower

- Chickens!

Someday my {Dream Garden} will be real. But for now, my little parts and pieces that I plant and take with us from apartment to apartment will do, and in the near future, Jeff and I will finally get to lay down some {roots}.