My Postage Stamp Garden
My last post - Make No Little Plans - may seem to some to be a paean to the grand and overly ambitious and even, dare I say, unobtainable....
But forgive me for that impression. I aim to correct it now.
Make No Little Plans in all that you do.
Even if you have a sloping postage stamp of a yard, crossed by a driveway, with a neighbor's giant Norway Maple (arghh!) shading half of it and another neighbor's above ground pool sitting next to it. Make a plan to level, screen and enhance and follow that plan even if it takes 20 years to achieve it.
Yep, 20 years....sometimes a vision takes a while to manifest itself.
And since we are the last on our list...others' gardens get done before ours...we have developed a great deal of patience.
But as you can see, the plan slowly began to materialize....My husband was the master builder and designer of the converted garage. It sure is nice to have such a capable partner. I wouldn't have known what to do with a building.
Fluorescent orange marking paint is an essential in the designer's arsenal....but I did draw a detailed plan prior to all this. And the level ground is courtesy of a stone retaining wall at the back of the property behind the evergeens we just planted.
Now the fun part happens...what we gardeners dream of...plants and more plants.
Someone gave me the lovely teak furniture, I planted all flowers and groundcovers and sedges, planted the pots and voila! a serenity garden that I dreamed of for years.
Make No Little Plans
(Thank You to my dear friend, Jan N. , who gave me her dad's garden bench...I cherish it)
Thanks for the personal view, Jan. Nothing wrong with paying the bills by making great gardens; I paid mine by digging, so to speak, in the academic trenches.
ReplyDeleteI was fortunate, also, to have an artist husband who could build things. My son and I can carry on maintenance, but alas, little creativity.
I find myself to have become, at 76, an eminence grise myself. Oh, the irony. No longer in the trenches--looking on from a lawn chair. But no more papers to grade, no more proofs to read, no more processions in hot sun, wearing a toasty black mini-burka.
So glad to see that you have a serenity garden of your own!
Wow, friends that give teak furniture and garden benches. What lovely, generous people you associate with! I tell myself that because it took many years to realize my garden design dreams in my yard, I just knew my site and what I wanted that much more. It's either think that or tear out my hair.
ReplyDeleteChristine in Alaska
You have created a lovely refuge there,and thanks for pointing out that it did take 20 years. so many times we get frustrated when things dont happen immediately. It is good to have some long term projects to work on.
ReplyDelete