Memorial Day Garden
Between the dizzying demands of Institute work and the spring gardening season, blogging has almost been nil. This weekend has been given over almost entirely to gardening: a truckload of topsoil, 12 yards of mulch put down, 4 extra large garbage can bags of debris raked up. All in preparation for planting.
Last summer, we built the skeleton. This summer, we are fleshing it out. Trees, shrubs, grasses, wildflowers, perennials. No time or money for annuals this year. (The big bed above is already planted with wildflower seeds that are just germinating and too small to be seen. Pikes Peak would be visible in the distance just left of center if our volunteer poplar wasn't obscuring the view.)
(Russian Hawthorne trees planted last June in full bloom today.)
That's because, as one family member put it memorably: "you aren't landscaping a yard, you are building a park!"
And its beginning to feel that way. Who knew that 1/3 of an acre was so big?
(Xeric perennials and bulbs planted last summer are back in good form.)
When we're done, there will be 17 trees and 27 large (as in 6 - 12 feet high) shrubs in the back yard. And that's just the big stuff. There are 57 trees/shrubs/roses/lilacs/vines to be planted along the back fence alone!
Someday, I know there will come a Memorial Day weekend when I will simply sit on the patio and revel. But it is not this day.
But I did get a glimpse of things to come this morning and thought I'd share a few pictures with you.
posted by Sherry W @ 2:45 PM
4 Comments
4 Comments:
Well Sherry I only have one fifth of an acre and that with a two storey house and double garage and 100 foot asphalt drive covering much of it and it demands a lot of attention to make sure the weeds don't reign. How on earth do you find the time?
Steve
Steve
Shame is a great motivator.
Actually, much more powerful is the drive to create something really beautiful in the place of something unbelievably ugly. I never expected to own a home (living in Seattle with its sky high prices) much less one like this. This was literally God's gift and was" full of potential" if you get my meaning.
The design is by a professional landscape designer (we couldn't make head or tails of the weird shape of the back yard. All we knew was it had been trashed and no amount of watering was going to bring the grass back.)
And when pieces are done (say the grass with its automatic irrigation system) the result is so glowing and seemingly effortless that you start to forget what it took to get there.
In that sense, all major creativity is like childbirth. And even the process of getting there can be mesmerizing. It can feel almost like a vocation. It is a kind of mini redemption.
Besides - I've had lots of help from muscular types - Fr. Mike the great gardener among them and other people can plant. Trees especially. It's great to watch, in a leisurely way - someone else to something back-breaking for you. A brief taste of what it would be like to have money. And all these beautiful trees just
"appear" and change the look of everything.
This summer will be much less work than last summer (I keep telling myself)
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