The Fence

(No, we didn't suddenly get some snow. This is from January 2004. We musn't forget the longest season of the year when we're planning our gardens.)
While Wende's been looking at lush green things, I've been looking at fences. Ugh. Not nearly as much fun.

But I did find this gem:


Apparently, it's in Maui. (Go figure).

And then there's this one: the playground fence. I think it's wonderful.



My ambitions are not quite so exotic, however. I just want a natural board fence: but given that I am not quite the masochist it seems I need to be, I will be painting it. I have received the go-ahead. I'm not really sure this is a good thing, nor is it entirely non-masochistic. (The best thing would be just to let the paint continue peeling for the next ten years. Alas, I am impatient.) And, you know me, a project isn't complete unless it includes a little painting. In this case, it will be a LOT of painting. The husband said he purchased two ten gallon pails when he painted it 12 years ago. He applied two coats.

In order to approximate the look of a natural fence, I want to paint the thing grey/brown. Surprisingly, google lacks images of dark grey fences. I did manage to scrounge this one.



And this:



It came with a whole article on why dark coloured fences can be a good thing. (The interesting thing about the article wasn't the reasons for having a dark fence, per se, but that I'd already figured them out. Without anyone telling me already. You know you've learned something when....)
Don't get me wrong, I think white fences can be attractive especially when they're as open as this one:



But a white privacy fence?


As my Mother-in-law would say: "Oh my g-d. Give me a break." (As she said repeatedly. Like punctuation). Can you imagine this in winter? My poor eyes.

By the way--Zooza--you have the best fence ever. It's amazing.

Killing plants--hardly a Boom da da boom--

I feel so guilty.

After two years of half-hearted "organic" methods to remove my vigorous and thriving patch of weeds, I've decided to use a well-known herbicide. I applied 1/2 the mixture I made up--over about twice the recommended area for the whole mix. Will it work? I should know in 24-48 hours when everything is supposed to start turning brown.

There were some interesting looking plants in there, but they had evil looking "cocoon" white fuzz on the stems where they met the whorl of leaves. They gave me the willies. I may be able to get a picture once the batteries for the camera recharge.

I also sprayed a bunch of long grass type stuff over by the west fence.

The question is--now what?
Once all this stuff dies and I clear it out--what do I do to keep it "cleaned up?" *

My plans for the area by the house will be time consuming to implement--I probably won't be able to actually grow anything until next year.

As for the area by the west fence, where all the long nasty grass is now dying--I have no plans for it yet at all.

*I just re-read the instructions on the bottle: it says further applications will be needed as new growth appears. So, I quess that's that. I'll be waking up early in the morning and killing things for the rest of the summer.

GT Week 1: My To Do List

One of the many things you may find when rearranging your yard. Wasp larvae: the beige ones were actually wiggling.

I got up earlyish to look at the yard this morning: rain is threatening. I was planning to go after the weeds against the south wall, too. Poot.

So, instead, I'll make a list of the things I want to do, aka the Week One GT tasks.

Make a complete list of areas which need repair, weeding, improvement or movement. Make a list of possible solutions.

This week:1. Start killing the weeds on the south wall of the house and research how high I can put the planters. I had thought to make them fairly high but I was reading something about drainage last night, so I may have to revise my plan. However, removing the weeds will take about three weeks. That gives me lots of time to figure it out--building the planters will probably take the whole summer though.

2. Stake out new pathway from gate to sidewalk. Begin excavating. The husband found rubber pavers at the Home Centre yesterday. I didn't like the colours nor the shapes on offer, so I nixed it. Then I came home and did a little 'net research and discovered 1) a local manufacturer and 2) other options for shape and colour. I am now sold--so far sold I want to rip up all the concrete and replace it with this wonderful eco-friendly material. Tires are such an ecological bane: it would be great to have something that re-uses them. Bonus: We can lift them!

3. Put the mulch down around the high bush cranberry.

4. A soil test. One of my books has a do-it-yourself test that the kids and I may be able to do. I can post about it if anyone is interested.

5. Dismantle picnic table. It's all bolted and screwed together, but it's all quite rusty. I'm planning to use the wood for planters.

6. Purchase composter. I've been collecting kitchen scaps since we got home. I'm not exactly sure where to put it though.

7. This is an idea I am going to introduce a little further along, but I'm starting this week, just because I'm so ignorant. I'm going to create a little "plant care" notebook. I'll probably use a two-up photo album for this--with a picture on the top and and index card on the bottom with the name of the plant along with notes for its care. Just placing the picture and the card in a recipe box would work well, too. I've already started taking pictures. I may be calling on you for help to identify some of them.

Other repairs needed:

This Year:Straighten fence and repaint.
Figure out and install proper drainage under the beds planned for the south facing wall of the house
Construct planters for south bed
Construct cold frame
Realign bed along west fence
Level sunken sidewalk.
Install new walkway from driveway
Create "mowing strips" and put mulch around shrubs
Remove all unwanted and unhealthy plants/shrubs
Create dog run?

Design front yard: remove sod and lay down gravel paths
Relocate tulips.

Year Two:
Take out concrete and construct slightly larger wood deck/patio
Construct and install fire pit
Plant the area between the (new) walkways by the garage
Plant front yard

Year Three:
Construct pergola over wood deck/patio

And that's about as far as I can think right now. There will probably be more.

Monday's Project

I tried rearranging the BBQ on the "patio" today. I wanted to get it out from under the kitchen window so I put it on the opposite side of the picnic table. Didn't work.

This was my view.


Can you say hemmed in and claustrophobic? And the view from the kitchen window was horrible.

I lived with it for about an hour, reading gardening books at the table and feeling antsy.

Then I moved everything back.

The Sunday Evening Project

I am bone tired. It's a good tired though it far exceeds the results I got for all my effort. No matter.

I was clearing out some concrete blocks (rubble left from dismantling my mother's worn out stoop last June) from the weed patch near the house (I'd put them there to hold down cardboard in a misguided effort to smother the weeds last year) when it occurred to me I could use them to provide a nice little ring around our high bush cranberry. This high bush cranberry, to be precise. How long could it take?



It didn't take long to ring the tree, actually. However, it occurred to me I should probably dig out the grass immediately underneath it. (This was the point of the exercise, really--to provide a border for ground cover or mulch so the weed whacker wouldn't have to go in there to get the inevitably long grass which always clings tenderly to the base of it.)

That took ages. I stopped mid-way through and realised I was working in the only sunny spot left in the entire back yard! (Though of course the sun went behind a cloud when I snapped the picture).


At this point, the husband wielded the spade with much zeal, digging far deeper than I'd wanted. So I probably laid those darn concrete "stones" three times more after that. But here we are:


There's only a partial second row. I can go to my Mom's and get more rubble.
Now I need to decide: cedar bark mulch (we have it) or low growing ground cover (we don't)? Any ideas?

GT: Week 1

This is an exciting week. Chiefly, we'll diagnose problems and create a vision. My garden involves both the front yard and the back; both large areas, as you've seen. The time-line for such a huge project is necessarily longer than WT and even AT, for that matter. The books I've been reading recommend about three years to see a garden "come to life." That's not bad, especially as we've been living with the garden in a mess for much longer than that.

Bones:

Make a complete list of areas which need repair, weeding, improvement or movement. Make a list of possible solutions. For example, I've decided that the walkway from the driveway to the sidewalk needs to be repositioned and the vegetable garden moved.

Clean up any twigs or debris from the lawn/garden.

Make a list of tools needed. For example, I want a composter. It's a tool. I'll have to research what else we may need and inventory what we have.

Find a garden centre you love.

Set a budget.

Breath:

In AT, Maxwell directs us remove one item. I'm not sure what that could be in each situation: it may be Zooza's honeysuckle, in my case, it could be the now defunct picnic table or a weed or two or a hundred. Decide for yourself whether you can do this. The goal, of course, is simply to start freeing up space to breathe and move.

Collect pictures of plants or gardens and garden designs you love.

Heart:

Buy something and re-pot it, if necessary. It doesn't need to be expensive. It can be an annual and left at the door or a small plant for an outdoor table. It can be something in a container you move later once the plan has been figured out. I want tomatoes. Big fat juicy tomatoes--with fresh basil to eat with them once they're ripe. Finding and planting a tomato is venturing into unknown territory for me.

Head:

Determine your goals for your garden: what are the activities you need it to support?

Sit in an area you haven't sat in (if you can).

Take your "before" pictures.

Look into organic gardening and xeriscaping. Find friendly ways to look after pests, if needed.

A garden exists for your soul. It exists to nourish you in every way. Whatever your space, you can create something that feeds all of your senses: sight and smell, of course, but also sound if you can include a bird house or feeder or bath and taste if you can grow something to eat. Try and find a way to include as much sensory stimulation as you can--and that means you too scb. Find out what purple martins eat, perhaps, and put out food for them. That should help with the skeeter problem. Just a thought.

GT: Analysis and "Before" Pictures.

(This is the only nice area of our entire property. It exists on the west side of the house and is enjoyed solely by our meter reader.)

Let's take a look at it piece by piece.

You've seen the front yard. Here's a view from the side. As you can see, we live on a corner lot.

Why is there a broom in the flagpole, you ask? Why is there a flagploe? Why, it's to hold the extension cord we used to plug in the car two winters ago. As a kindness to our neighbours, we strung it up and over the sidewalk.

Bones: The house just sits here--as do most others on our block. It's forbidding. The path to the house isn't wide enough for two people. I'm not sure what that plant is at the corner--it's quite straggly, too. Those two trees at the side do attract birds but the one in the rear seems to have a lot of dead branches. Its leaves cast a beautiful dappled light into our room in the morning, though, so I want to keep it and make it healthy.

Breath: Flow? Movement? None.

Heart: Boring, unbalanced.

Head: If the purpose of the front lawn is to integrate the house with its surroundings and welcome visitors then I think it fails on both counts.

Now for the backyard. It has at least five distinct areas. Maybe more. (I'm not exactly sure how to count them all up).

There are, currently, three garden sections.

1) By the back door along the foundation.

Bones: Obviously overgrown and disfunctional.
Breath: It is about three feet deep and something ridiculous like 22feet long. I want to grow vegetables here in tiered planters with mulched paths between them.
Heart: Ugly, embarrassing.
Head: Has no function or purpose. Needs a complete clearing out.

2) A serpentine planting bed along the west fence which extends all the way back to the brightly painted bike shed (I was standing in front of it when I took the first picture). We have raspberry canes growing back by the shed. They'll stay. The husband has been tenderly caring for them since he moved in.



Bones: It has good bones, actually, except for the electrical wires leading to the garage. I like the curve, I like the shrub by the picnic table. The husband wants to put in a fire pit, though and that would require reshaping it. So, I'm not sure what will happen here, if anything. It's also a very shady spot.

Breath: The shape gives and shrub actually give definition to the eating area which is something I'd want to keep.

Heart: None.

Head: No clue what the purpose of this area should be except it would be lovely to have some colour and tall things growing to obscure the fence. It might be a thought to extend this area and put up some sort of screen to block our view of the shed and useful eavestrough extension. Here's the view, looking back the other way, taken today, from in front of the BBQ.



3) The vegetable garden plot. The boards containing it have rotted through and the area is overgrown. The dog has dug a deep hole in the middle. I want to eliminate it entirely.



Here's a shot of the area from the back door. (Also taken today). You can see the outline of the ancient useless plot.



Bones: None. See the gate coming in from the driveway? I want to put in paving stones and make a new path which curves towards the sidewalk to the house. It would also be a good idea to widen the path by the garage so we can wheel our bikes out of the shed and over to the gate more easily.

Breath:
Bad. Movement is actually difficult and it was an impossible spot for a vegetable garden.

Heart: Kill it all now.

Head: The entire purpose of this area is to get in and out of the yard. That's it. If I can get that much done this year I'll be happy. I think I'd also like to plant something in the resulting area that will be enclosed by the new paths. Something dramatic with a bird feeder or bird bath in the middle.


Other areas:
1)The BBQ and picnic table.
(scroll down a few posts if you want to see a picture)

Bones: This needs a shelter of some kind. We've been thinking of a screen house, but I don't really want a roof. A pergola would be perfect. The concrete is also seriously bad shape, though the thought of jack hammering it out is numbing. The BBQ--under the kitchen window transfers smoke and heat into the house. That sort of defeats the purpose of BBQing, I think.

Breath: It works well, actually, if you don't mind having your chair fall into a crack when you push it out to get up from the table. (Something we only discovered last night. Wasn't a problem with the picnic table!)

Heart: Needs lots of love.

Head: Ok. Let's be honest. For this area to work really well, it needs to be elevated with access directly off the kitchen. But that's never going to happen.

2)The "play" area. Here we have the playhouse and doghouse, toy box and sand box. There's also this strange tree/shrub which I like but which is dying.



Bones: Messy, messy, messy. The sandbox can go. The playhouse needs to be painted inside and prettied up. I am planning to do that with Aurelia this summer.

Breath: Movement through here isn't bad though everything is lined up against the fence. That's necessary for a few more years, though as we like the lawn for throwing and kicking various balls.

Heart: I'd like to put little window boxes on the playhouse windows.

Head: Area needs to be better defined as it's purpose. If this is really where the toys go, then that's where we need to put them. Do we want to put a dog run here so we don't have to lock up our outdoor lovin' mutt inside when we leave the house?


1. What is the problem with your yard/garden?
Simply put, it's nasty.

Like my wardrobe, it has been neglected. I do not know how to garden and from everything I've read, I don't think I'll like it. But I do like pretty things. But if there's one thing I've learned from AT, it's that, in my case, ignorance, (and lack of accountability) not laziness, leads to the neglect. Hence, GT.

The fence needs to be repainted. I'd like it stripped to bare wood, actually, like our neighbours. It's a lot of fence, though, so I may have to paint it a soft gray instead. That may be a hard sell.

The layout is also incredibly boring.

2. What would your garden/landscape say?Ha, ha, ha, I've got you! I'm doing exactly what I want...I'm in charge of what grows here, not you!

3. What is lacking that you would like to do?
Eat fresh tomatoes, herbs and other veggies like beets. Smell nice things. Cut flowers for the house. Watch birds. Read in the shade. The kids would like a pool. We have a fair sized inflatable one which with some planning could be left up in the summer.

4. How would you like your garden/landscape to be described?
Inviting. Peaceful. Exciting. Colourful. Fun.