We will “celebrate” our seventh anniversary in our house in a couple of weeks. We have almost two acres, much of it wooded; there is enough lawn that it takes me just under two hours with our push-mower once a week. (Actually, that qualifies as “more than enough lawn.” Yeesh.) This is my first house after years of apartment-living and I was, seven years ago, ecstatic at the prospect of being able to create and maintain my own gardens. As I mentioned, that was seven years ago: this year, all I have sown is apathy.
The yard was a blank slate when we moved in: the lawn a mess of weeds and crabgrass, and some foundation shrubs along the front. The soil was really three inches of dirt over a deep layer of sand the contractor had used for fill – not the ideal for planting anything except for perhaps ostrich heads. Also, we are on a very slow well that recovers one gallon of water in seven minutes, so watering outdoors is not an option. Still, plenty of room for possibilities! I even started a gardening journal and faithfully began recording my adventures.
I immediately dug out (and amended, and amended, and amended again) a small flower garden in front [tulips – which the deer and squirrels promptly ate every last one of – and icicle violets], a narrow rock garden, a triangular bed on the back corner of the house [vincas, which dried up because I couldn’t water them], and a big perennial bed in the back yard [asters, hollyhocks, bee balm, day lily, coreopsis]. Later, I added black-eyed Susans and sea thrift to the rock garden and smelly herbs (lavender, catmint and thyme) to the front garden. See, I noted, I’m already learning to focus on drought-resistant, anti-pest plants. This is such fun!
In January 2002, I started a wish list. In May (after the frost had finally left our Maine soil), I dug a new perennial bed off our deck [clematis, sedum, campanula], added to my big perennial bed [cornflowers, pinks, globe thistles, lupine], replaced the ground cover at the corner of the house [pachysandra – which has actually, to this day, succeeded], and cute little hens-and-chicks [sempervivum] to the rock garden. By mid-June, everything in the rock garden except for the hens-and-chicks had died and the remaining tulips were decimated by the local wildlife. Undeterred by this, I optimistically planted 200 bulbs in the fall – all of which ended up being eaten by the #$%^&*! squirrels. I noted in my journal that I seemed to be very good at planting new plants but very bad at maintenance. This will be a recurrent theme.
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