04/09/2026
Chaos Garden Magic 🪄
Here’s the thing, your garden doesn’t need to be neat and tidy to produce. Last year we created this “little emergency” semi circle bed for all of my filler flowers and random leftover bits that I couldn’t bear to compost due to lack of space.
The Chaos garden was literally stripped turf, topped with compost and planted. And not planted in a pretty rows, I quite literally tossed them in, and sprinkled some seed for good measure. I ignored all spacing requirements and it was chaos! But in the best way. Survival of the fittest, short plants reached for light, tall ones flopped occasionally, others held each other up, as one variety finished, another was unfurling. The pollinators and weeds were wild. But the weeds stayed low due to the crowded plants and every day there was a new surprise.
2 extra dahlia cuttings mingled with glads, cosmos, orlaya, bee balm, nicotiana, lavatera, statice, grasses, scabiosa, bachelors buttons, zinnias, asters, marigolds and a myriad of bits and pieces. And you know what? I’m doing it again, somehow the chaos garden became my favorite spot, I can’t wait to visit it again. This year there will be surprises from seed dropped in the fall, plus peonies, tulips, yarrow and rudbeckia I transplanted into it before the snow fell.
The only change will be my cosmos. The previous years cosmos dropped seed and planted themselves in the dahlia patch and I adored finding them reaching through so I’ll do that intentionally this time. They were a pain to get to in the chaos garden✂️
All of that to say, forget the perfection sometimes friends, magic is made in the mess💛