Lofty Hopes and Dreams

PROJECT 1.

THE NEGLECTED BACK YARD.

Lofty hopes and dreams.  That's how every story begins...

I love gardening magazines.  I love the look of lush, full plantings with pathways leading you...wait...begging you to explore further.  Along the way you find hidden treasures that give you some insight to the homeowners personality.  Birds sing to you as you continue your journey, stopping only to admire the way the light plays off the color of the leaves and the different textures that were used in the bed.

STOP. 

The image I just created was NOT my backyard.

I wanted it to be my backyard, but it wasn't. 

So this year we decided to make the dream a reality.  Let's start with some before images and descriptions. 

CONS:

• Our gutter downspout pops up right in a prime planting area, making it difficult to landscape around it.  You can't use mulch around it and you have to be cautious what you plant.  The back yard is also on a slight slope, so the water from the pop up downspout will wash away anything in its path (not just the immediate area around it)

• We have a large maple tree that the previous homeowners planted SMACK DAB in the middle of the back yard, also making landscaping difficult.  This tree means that much of our back yard is shaded / part shade.  The light itself is not a problem, but the location of the tree is.

• The gazebo takes up quite a bit of space in the backyard leaving only a small area for the pond itself.  Any hopes of making the pond larger simply aren't possible without removing either the tree or the gazebo. 

• When we installed our fence, it left a very narrow area on the side of the gazebo, also very shaded.

This is how the "Lilac Meadow" started in 2009

PROS:

•  When we installed our fence, it left a very narrow area on the side of the gazebo, also very shaded.  This gives me the ability to create a secret, secluded area in the yard because it is not visible from the backdoor.



Another picture of the "Lilac Meadow". This was taken in 2011. 



• There are SO many wonderful perennials that can be placed in shade / part shade. 

• By increasing the size of the pond flower bed itself, we also immediately created paths to get to and from different areas of the yard.   

Our projects this spring have included:

1.) I finished off the edges in the lilac meadow with some decorative bricks that matches the previously installed raised bed ( note the lower left side of the picture.)  We filled in the newly edged beds with dirt.  It will be home to hosta, primrose, astilbe, spiderwort and lamium. Currently, only a few hosta and the spiderwort are planted.  More pictures will be posted in the coming weeks as to how this area is progressing.  In the distance is the "secret garden"  I am looking for an old wrought iron gate to use as a gate to keep the dogs out of the veggies and hops.

2.) We've also added additional beds in front/around our raised vegetable garden.  One of them I affectionately call "grandma's garden".  It will be home to peonies and poppies.  These flowers remind me of both of my grandmothers.  One grew the most beautiful peonies, and the other belonged to the VFW.  Every year we sold buddy poppies.  I was buddy poppy queen when I was younger.  :) 

Currently only the peonies are installed. 

When we dug out the area around the pond, several daylilies had to be relocated.  Because I loved the look of the salvia, daylily and lavender combo in the front; I mimicked this in my backyard.  I absolutely love the color, texture and contrast of these plants.  They are in the lower bed. 

The big plastic covered mound in the background is sod.  It is sitting in what should be one of our vegetable gardens. At least it's not in the driveway!  :)

The new areas are desperately in need of mulch, which hopefully we will be doing the first weekend of May.

3.) We also installed a wonderful shade / part shade bed which includes a hydrangea bush, Solomon's seal, goats beard, hosta, columbine, toad lily, and carex.  On the edges of the bed that receive more sun we have creeping phlox, coneflower and black-eyed susan.    We sponsor a child in Ethiopia.  Her last name is Solomon.  I wanted to create a bed so that I could plant Variegated Solomon's Seal to remind me of her.

 

REALITY CHECK:  IF YOU ARE NOT AWARE OF THE FAMINE / DROUGHT IN AFRICA PLEASE EDUCATE YOURSELF ON IT.  IT IS DEVASTATING.  IF YOU ARE ABLE PLEASE HELP.  We found our sponsored family through Childfund International, but there are many organizations that have been founded to help those in Africa.  We are fortunate enough to have the EXTRA water for a flower garden, they are not fortunate enough to have even enough water to drink or grow FOOD.  Puts things into perspective doesn't it?

4.)  We placed rock in front of our back gate to tie into the pergola area.  I have a thing for curved lines and it was always just a bit off in my eye.  We had just enough rock left to fix it.  Lex is currently growing about 100 irish moss now to fill this area.



Before



After





5.) THE GRAND FINALE:

  We increased the size of our pond area and planted several perennials.

The goal was to tuck the pond away behind lush plantings. In our case there will be 5 hosta and various other plants in the foreground.  We solved the drainage issue by creating a dry creek bed that runs along side the bridge, the rest of the area outside the "creek" will be mulched. 

To fully enjoy the view of the pond you will need to venture down the path toward the bridge, stopping to watch the ornamental grasses swaying gently in the breeze.  Your eyes then notice the delicate foliage of the ferns against the contrasting broad leaves of the hostas.  Listen as the busy bumbles are flying from flower to flower enjoying their sweetness...birds sing to you as you continue your journey, stopping again to admire the way the light is playing off the color of the leaves and different textures that were used in OUR bed.

Lofty hopes and dreams.  That's how every story begins...

Change of Plans

Spring has sprung at the Bonam's, the projects have officially begun.

So remember the project list from last month? 

Plans changed.  We decided that rather than doing the arborvitae, we would concentrate on our neglected backyard. 

SOME HISTORY:  A few years back we installed a smallish prefab pond.  It was cute, I loved it.  It was well planted the first year.  We bought beautiful koi to put in the pond and even installed lights to enhance the pond for night viewing.  It was a great summer.  Radio margaritaville and BBQ every Saturday night the first year.  The pond wasn't / isn't deep enough to winter the koi, so all but ONE were brought into the house.  "Orange Blossom" was our guinea pig to see if they could survive the winter in the pond.   We continued to love them and feed them all winter.  Orange Blossom hibernated in the pond outside.  The inside koi ate from your hand and grew like crazy. 

Spring came and it was time to move everyone outside...WITH ORANGE BLOSSOM.  Orange Blossom survived the winter and also grew like crazy.  We waited until it was warm enough and the pond was ready.  The move went well, everyone acclimated into the pond and seemed very happy.  The next morning I woke up to Lex standing at our bedroom window saying "honey, wake up.  you have to see this".  I stumbled to the window (still half asleep) to find a large white bird standing in our pond with its head down.  I FLEW down the stairs with our shepherd in tow, shoved him out the backdoor and we raced to the pond.  

Needless to say, most of the koi were gone.  It was devastating.  We replaced a few koi (which in frustration I named them Sushi and Ceviche).  We had to place a large net over the top of the pond to prevent our new koi from living up to their name.  Now I couldn't plant anything in the pond because of this large net.  To say the least, I was very discouraged.  Who would have thought that a heron would choose our SMALL pond for breakfast? 

Months passed.  We restocked the pond. They were becoming more friendly and they too ate out of your hand.  We didn't reinstall the lights and again... nothing was planted.  Frustration caused the pond area to fall into a state of neglect.  The pond was nice, but that's about it.  We still had Buffett & BBQ on Saturday night, but the ambiance of the pond was absent.



THIS YEAR: When "spring" arrived (early) this year we did our yard clean up and trekked around the property deciding what to do this year.  I found that after each exhausting day in the garden we would retire to the front porch for our victory beer and cigar.  Hence, the need for the arborvitae for more privacy in the front. 

Now, our backyard is visible from our large back door/windows in the kitchen.  It [the backyard] became our "dirty little secret".  Everyone saw the beautiful exterior, but no one saw the nightmare that was our backyard.  Landscaping follies.  Yes I had many.  I used small rock as mulch around the pond area.  ROCK.  Do you know how hard it is to plant and dig in rock?  This is another reason that the area never got finished.  We couldn't figure out [at the time] any other way to keep mulch from washing into our pond, so this was our answer.  We had a tree ring that was right next to the bridge to go over the pond.  We went through installing waterfalls that didn't work the way they should, a waterfall that looked terrible and a fountain that stopped working.  The pond area has been a royal pain in the...let's just say it's been a headache.  Last year my mother painstakingly picked up each and every rock/pebble around the pond in her free time.  On a side note she told me that she would beat me if I ever used small rock as mulch again.  We had lofty ideas for the back yard, but it just kept going to the back burner.

Then it came to us.  Let's finish the back.  enjoy our BACKYARD.

So this is what the next few posts are about.

OUR CHANGE OF PLANS.

THIS IS OUR "BEFORE" PICTURE