The Mere Anarchy Garden
I've lived in my house for about eighteen years. When I moved in, its large back yard was a wilderness of blackberries; over the years, I got those out, planted a bunch of trees and bushes, and, uh, taken a vaiety of approaches. I tend to cycle; a few years of intensive work, followed by a few years of laziness in which most of the work gets lost to the vagaries of nature.
This past year has been a work cycle. I finally finished hardscaping (I like that word) the stairs and pathways in the main part of the yard, removed some of the wilder out-of-control brugmansias, and started a program of planting things with more atttention to the overall effect.
After months of this, the yard looks better than it has for some time. But the gyre is widening, and I'm not sure the falcon can still hear me -- or if it can, it isn't listening.
For one thing, the part of the garden I figured as sunny and planted all the achillaea in turns out to be shadier than the part I figured as shady that I planted all the ligularia in. I have a few more plants to add, and I can't decide whether to put them in the places they were planned for, where they won't grow very well but at least the effect will look consistent, or whether to admit defeat and start planting them where they will do best and make the landscaping design a subject of scorn and mockery.
In the meantime, a vining primrose that I found at Annie's annuals is producing only about one small flower a week (it should be covered with them) but is otherwise happy enough to be doing a pretty good kudzu imitation and engulfing the herbs around it. The moist soil under the palm that I planned for showy moisture- loving flowers turns out to be so filled with palm roots that there's really no soil, just roots to hack away at, and planting is almost impossible. My native plants flourish, but in very peculiar directions so that nothing is where it's supposed to be and a machete is getting to be necessary for garden strolls.
I wonder if astroturf is really such a bad choice...
This past year has been a work cycle. I finally finished hardscaping (I like that word) the stairs and pathways in the main part of the yard, removed some of the wilder out-of-control brugmansias, and started a program of planting things with more atttention to the overall effect.
After months of this, the yard looks better than it has for some time. But the gyre is widening, and I'm not sure the falcon can still hear me -- or if it can, it isn't listening.
For one thing, the part of the garden I figured as sunny and planted all the achillaea in turns out to be shadier than the part I figured as shady that I planted all the ligularia in. I have a few more plants to add, and I can't decide whether to put them in the places they were planned for, where they won't grow very well but at least the effect will look consistent, or whether to admit defeat and start planting them where they will do best and make the landscaping design a subject of scorn and mockery.
In the meantime, a vining primrose that I found at Annie's annuals is producing only about one small flower a week (it should be covered with them) but is otherwise happy enough to be doing a pretty good kudzu imitation and engulfing the herbs around it. The moist soil under the palm that I planned for showy moisture- loving flowers turns out to be so filled with palm roots that there's really no soil, just roots to hack away at, and planting is almost impossible. My native plants flourish, but in very peculiar directions so that nothing is where it's supposed to be and a machete is getting to be necessary for garden strolls.
I wonder if astroturf is really such a bad choice...