we bought our acre of land over a year ago and i have big dreams of a cottage garden, vegetable patch, and chickens. these things take time, motivation, money, and warm weather, however, and often one or more of these components is in short supply. we didn't make much progress last summer, but i have high hopes for this summer.
i meant to blog these "before" pictures earlier this spring when i took them, but that was about the time my blogging went out the window. i'm going to try to catch up on them today as i'd still like a record of my gardening journey here on my blog. get ready. there are some ugly pictures ahead. probably they are too ugly for the internet to handle, but sometimes i think there is too much perfection around here anyway. i mean, how many of us really do live such perfect lives?
this first picture is what remained of our deck plants from last summer. i left them out, because i thought some might come back this spring. i had no idea how to overwinter them though and we had a particularly harsh winter, so only two of the sedums came back. oh well. looks lovely, right? blerg.
this little area g has dubbed "the hillbilly garden" as last year it was a haphazard mix of randomness. now it is a haphazard mix of weeds with one little lone pansy that made it through the cold months. i'll hopefully be rejuvenating the hillbilly garden with some annuals soon.
i want to turn that area to the right into a vegetable patch. i've found that i like my plants close to home, so i can keep an eye on them. turning this into a vegetable patch requires removal of the behemoth holly bush. i'm not sure i'm man enough for that task.
i want to turn this area into a cottage garden with lots of lovely perennials. basically, all the bushes must go and approximately six cubic yards of dirt must be hauled in. i have been fighting with the pampas grass clump in the middle for a couple weeks now. so far it is winning.
the front of the house confuses me. basically, i love the landscaping in the backyard. that was all put in by the original owner. most of the landscaping in the front of the house was put in by the second owner. he preferred very formal things which is not my style at all. i don't like shaped hedges. the boxwood trees across the front of the house were shaped into little boxed topiary with boxed holly underneath. i've so far removed five of the holly bushes (one more bush plus an extra root ball to go) plus getting rid of those tree things. it's a lot of work. and then i'm not sure what to replace it with. i think i want evergreen(ish) and simple at the front of the house, but i'm not really sure what that is. right now i'm leaning towards moving the nandina to the wall and adding in some otto luyken laurel.
hot mess.
i had the neighbor boy till me up a patch to plant my wildflower seeds. in retrospect, i should have set a string line for him to follow. oh well. i'll straighten it up this fall, right?
this is the corn patch that g and his dad planted last year. currently, it's being used as a fire pit.
and i let g plant lettuce in the little raised bed. he went a bit overboard and now we just can't keep up.
stay tuned! improvements coming soon! :)
oh, Doris, you're doing wonderfully. i have some of your same challenges. landscaping that confuses me. the hard work of removing holly bushes gone wild. the challenge of doing it oneself without heavy equipment. you're rocking it. xo.
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