June 28th, 2009 Is A Change As Good As A Rest?
The Shade Garden awaiting repairs and changes
Like it or not, I’ve been given the challenge of renovating our shade garden. Some changes were inevitable. I knew that. But little did I realize just how many changes were in store!
Our tiny village has finally installed a municipal sewage system and every house and business is being hooked into it. This past week, it was our turn.
Down came the board fence and gate. We were told the contractor would be here on Friday so I had planned to remove plants growing along the path of the sewer mains on Thursday evening. Upon returning home from work on Wednesday I discovered the contractor in the process of digging up our side yard. So of course I had to go straight to work removing the plants I wanted to save. When that task was completed, I headed indoors for the longed for cup of tea I hadn’t had yet. No sooner did I get the pot of tea made, when a knock on the door brought the news that more plants had to come out. Back to the digging!
To make a long story short, two thirds of the plants were removed, the grass torn up, and a pile of soil spanning the width of the shady side yard sits waiting to be levelled. Some plants are gone for good. Some damaged to the point where a lot of TLC is required to help them recover.
On the plus side, the weeds are gone, some of the perennials have been divided giving me more plants, the bed has been widened and more soil has been added to it.
Yesterday morning, the mosquitoes and I re-planted the shade garden without much thought as to placement of the plants. I did consider height, width and foliage colours before plopping the plants in the ground, but so great was my desire to avoid becoming a banquet for every mosquito in the village, form and texture became unimportant. Talk about off the cuff landscape design!
It will be interesting to see which plants will survive the rough treatment they experienced and how the garden looks once things have settled. No doubt this fall will see a great deal of tweaking in the shade garden. Probably next spring will bring even more tweaking,
The front yard is also a mess, but not nearly as bad as the shade garden in the side yard. Some lavender plants were damaged, the back sides of the variegated willow standards were shorn off and the small lawn has been made smaller thanks to more mounds of dirt that trace the path of the sewer pipes to the road. The front garden should be fairly easy to restore, and the willows, being willows will come back quickly.
On that note, I’m off to join the mosquitoes and continue the garden repairs.
