Monday, July 30, 2012

New Landscaping Ideas



A Landscape for Our Current Needs


The madness is not really mad – disappointment and realism, maybe, but not madness.  Let me go back – twenty years or so.  I had recently been down-sized from my job, and Hubby and I down-sized, as well. We moved here and with my days more unstructured, I set out to design a great garden.
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Skip forward twenty years…..and looking forward to the next chapter in our lives.  This chapter is still being written, but the elements have lined up like this.  We are older.  The backs and knees do not appreciate the bending and stooping.  The income stream is more streamlined. The grand kids want to kick soccer balls, and play tag. So we planned a new backyard design.

We are reverting the large perennial beds back to a more manageable endeavor.

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Many coneflowers and penstemons have been moved and creeping jenny has been sprayed with an herbicide.  (I’m still scraping some out.)  The raised bed with daylilies, and  plumbago has been dismantled.

And we needed a few design ideas. The yard landscape is changing.

The edging stones have been rearranged to create a more manageable border along the back property line.
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As you can see, the design is coming along.  The cleared soil areas shown here are going to be seeded with grass in mid-to-late- August.  Just waiting for cooler nights, and hoping for rain to resume. 

This decision has not been made easily.  I LOVE to garden.  I really do, however, most folks do not find 2-3 hours a day, 15-20 hours a week, in the yard something they want to be obligated to do.    And the prospect of selling this house, to down-size once again, means we needed to rethink the yard design so that the gardens and lawns are less imposing.
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The fussy plants are gone.  I've kept the easygoing guys – yarrow, coneflowers, daisies, Hosta, and grasses.  100_0955

Still more to do, but I’m confident this new backyard design idea is on the right track. I find these changes are bringing a calmness and the landscape is more reflective of who we are now and is meeting our current needs.   

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