In another life, I was a bigtime flower gardener with green thumbs on both hands and both feet. I'm loving having a nice place to start all over again. This is almost as good a therapy as the recoil variety.
In truth, given oodles of cash and time to do it, you can make a garden look impressive in a relatively short amount of time, but a trained eye can see when something was overly-engineered and popped up overnight. The impressive part of gardening is building around a good core of perennials native to your area which will thrive on the climate you have with a minimal amount of water. The real trick of gardening is to find and prefer the plants which will thrive on your amount of neglect. A well-done garden does not come into its own until all seasons have passed at least a couple times.
To that end, I've gotten some of my gardeny things out of storage the past couple weeks and I've cooked a little with my herbs and I have a raging mess of Roma tomatoes which will be ready for table this week. Here's my first nice basket of plants, and a before picture. The white and lilac flowers from the ground are volunteers - petunias that came up from seed dropped from plantings the previous owners put out.
I expect by Fall, the whole garden area will be looking very different, and next Spring it will be a riot of blossoms and fragrance and taste that will belie the hours of effort and thought I've put into it But it'll be a good two years before this looks like my place. I'm patient to wait for that, because I've seen it happen, and it's a glorious thing.
More to come. Cheers, m'dears!
5 comments:
But it'll be a good two years before this looks like my place.
Yup. Creating a garden is a wonderful thing and it's one of the things I miss most about past lives. Good On Ya, Phlegmmy... for your patience and your beautiful beginning.
I had a house in Michigan that was built in the mid-1920s and you can imagine the plantings that came and went with that place over the years. Some of the plants were well-established and thriving, others had to be replaced due to serious neglect, still others were additions I made. I lived there for ten years and the garden/yard was just about "there" when I sold the place...
Meh- level of neglect... um... 200+ days a year? Bout all I can grow is WEEDS... sigh...
It appears that you have a lovely porch to sit on and observe your progress!
I bought this house from some people that planted some lovely things, but sadly I do not know what they are or how to take care of them. I thought about posting some pics on my blog and say "name that plant", but that may come across as self serving.
@Old-NFO,
Don't feel bad! Everyone around me has a "lawn". I have a "yard". +1 on the level of neglect!
I'm just happy that the lower half of the weeds is just as green as the grass. That way when I mow the lawn, it all looks good. I don't have a green thumb. My friends call the row of potted plants in the back yard, "death row."
Post a Comment