Herb and Flower Garden at 4 Years + DIY Watering System

See how we’ve grown our farmhouse’s herb and flower garden over four years into a beautiful sanctuary that keeps the deer at bay (for the most part!). I’m sharing the before and after, our watering system, and how easy the maintenance for this garden has been.

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It’s been four years since I planted my deer resistant flower garden, and it’s flourishing more than ever! Despite being in a deer-heavy area (to say the least – they eat almost everything), I’ve managed to keep this area growing and flowering and to maintain the garden with minimal effort.

I started with an area next to our farmhouse that had to be dug out after installing a foundation (yep, we bought a house that had been built on boulders and rocks!) and since there is a step down, I call it the Sunken Garden.

I didn’t want to deal with trying to grow plants that deer like a lot (goodbye roses, hostas, daylilies, and hydrangeas – the plants that had made up a big part of my previous cottage garden) so I focused on herbs like lavender, rosemary, and thyme, and scented flowering plants like salvias, coneflower, and penstemon.

I’m excited to share my journey and tips – including the inexpensive DIY watering system we installed – that have helped me create a beautiful, low-maintenance oasis right in my own yard.

The Garden’s Beginnings

Planted Garden Year One, June: I built up the soil in the beds and planted them with herbs and flowers I researched that deer don’t typically like.

We laid wood chips in the path as a temporary measure until we could get to the far area still covered with plastic (we needed to lay a cement path from the new back door and then create a fire pit area there).

I found small $2 herbs like thyme, lavender, germander, rosemary, and oregano which saved so much when having to plant a large area at once. I also used 6-packs of black-eyed susan, zinnias, alyssum, and salvia to save and fill in the first year.

The larger plants were a combo of things I had previously in pots and about 12 1-gallon dwarf boxwoods for some evergreen, year-around interest.

I added a top layer of compost for mulch, laid soaker hoses and called it good. Then I recorded a video and wrote a before and after article here with all the details, including the plants I used (in that article you will see how much this area filled in by September – it was amazing to me the difference a few months could make!).

The Garden at 2.5 Years

Here is the main path after removing the wood chip path and adding gravel to match the fire pit area we added after laying the cement walkway to the back door. You can see how nicely the plants have filled in by this late October photo.

I also continued to add a few things here and there since the first planting (fall blooming mums, etc.), as well as replacing anything that was lost over the winters.

The Garden at 4 Years + Tips

This garden in its fourth year is so full, right?

The lavender especially is overflowing, though I do like how it looks very “English cottagey” that way.

However, I am noticing that the taller “Provence” lavender is maybe a bit too tall for this garden – the trouble is that it’s the variety that has weathered the winters the best!

Lavender Test

I started out with 7 different varieties and the only ones that have survived the full 4 years are the Spanish lavender near the step, the tall Provence, and the shorter, darker purple English lavender (middle right).

The English lavender is the right height, but it looks VERY scraggley until almost June, while the Provence looks lush and green even when I use a hedge trimmer on it!

Still deciding what to do with it – do I leave the Provence or replace it with all English?

(And yes, we still have an area of black plastic – our attempt at grass didn’t work well and I have a plan for a few fun beds and maybe a lighted arch! So more killing of grass is happening and gravel will be laid there.)

I’ve been very pleased at how this garden has grown and that the deer leave most of the plants alone without me constantly spraying or having to use a motion detection water sprayer.

A few takeaways from starting a garden like this from scratch might be:

• Embrace the beginning garden look – I think it’s fresh and clean looking and will save a ton of $$ over buying lots of bigger plants (that may or may not establish as well). It’s just a different look from the blowsy, full-grown look!
• Use inexpensive herbs and annuals as place fillers if your design will take time to grow.
• Build the new garden in stages. Not sure of the path material yet? Use cheap and easy bark or wood chips until you decide. Planning for a patio or fire pit? Use plastic to kill the area for a few months (or years, lol…) and then fill with gravel or chips. Add perennials when you can, etc.
• Enjoy the process!!

Easy DIY Watering System

We created a pvc-pipe-and-soaker-hose watering system for this area just like we did for our vegetable garden raised beds! I can water all of these areas with just a flick of a lever (or a timer if I want).

Hose Hook Up: For this system we used a 2-way hose valve with levers so one lever could work the regular hose for hand watering and the other lever could hook to a short hose that connects to the underground pvc pipes.

PVC Underground Pipes: We laid the pipes the same way outlined in the DIY watering system tutorial, using a pick axe to dig trenches to all the beds we wanted added to the system, gluing and connecting as described in the tutorial.

Connecting The Hoses to The PVC Pipe System: The only thing we did differently here is to make the pvc elbows a bit closer to the ground and spray painted them brown to be a bit less intrusive.

The soaker hose is connected the the pvc pipes via an on-off valve similar to these (or this brass variety if you prefer).

The soaker hose type that’s working best in these beds are the cloth type (vs. the rubber hoses). They can be more easily laid and moved around and through the plants wherever you have them laid out in the beds. I’ve bought them in 2-packs of 50-ft from Amazon and as a single 25-ft hose from Target and they’ve both lasted 3+ years so far (and I wish I cold say I remember to bring them in for the winter, but I don’t).

Low Maintenance Tips

The other things that keep this area low maintenance besides the watering system has been:

• Using the paper and mulch weed suppression for the first three years. Once the soil was built up and the plants grew, I found this year I didn’t need the paper layer and simply layered on the compost mulch.
• Choosing varieties and plants that don’t need constant trimming. This is especially true for the boxwoods – some can grow 5-6 feet! I chose the variety “green gem” and have been very happy with their growth. I stayed away from shrubs for this reason, as well.
• Making much of the area permanent paths and patios. I made the pathways wide and chose to have a patio area for a fire pit versus more planting beds.
• Lining the gravel paths with 6-mil black plastic and using 3/4″ gravel with no fines (or “clean”). You do not want gravel with a lot of smaller pieces and sand – it will just grow weeds that blow in. I’ve used this combo for years with paths and it’s the best I’ve found. Do not use landscape fabric – I have found weeds eventually grow through the larger holes. And the sharp edges of the gravel poke enough holes in the plastic to allow drainage – I’ve never had water pooling, even during the winter.

What maintenance is needed for a garden like this?

• In the late winter or early spring, cut back the plants (now that they’re large enough, I use a hedge trimmer – super easy) and clean up the area.
• In spring lay a layer of compost mulch – this also feeds the soil so you don’t need to do any extra fertilizing in these beds (I’ve never added fertilizer to these beds).
• Cut back any bulbs as they finish blooming in spring.
• Plant any annuals you’d like to add – obviously optional.
• Deadhead as needed throughout the summer – this just keeps the area looking nice and allows some plants to rebloom – but you technically don’t have to do it. Cutting blooms for inside arrangements and herbs for cooking is an easy way to do this, too.
• You could do more clean up in the fall, but I like to leave things for the birds and do my clean up in late winter or early spring (but more honestly, it’s because I’m busy preserving and prepping for the holidays!).

Bonus: Check out these easy garden tasks checklists for what to do in your yard and garden every month of the year!

I hope this update on how my sunken garden has grown, even with our voracious deer population, is encouraging to you. You can have a beautiful, low maintenance flowering garden using plants that the deer mostly leave alone without constant intervention from you!

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