From the ground up — landscape

I have been too busy to post — a feeble excuse but my own.

There’s lots to write about; a visit to our designer’s offices to see the final (95%) plans, another chat on the Home Discovery Show radio program, even our visits to our cabinet and window makers.

But I have been completely sidetracked by the lure of the garden.

DH told me last week that we should start drawing up landscaping plans.  Pshaw, said I, we have lots of time  (I guffawed) . Let’s just put grass everywhere and then decide where we want what to grow.  They haven’t even started ripping apart the back yard, why fret about how it’s going to be put together?

Why fret?  Because the city wants us to.

Turns out that the city wants to see a plan of what we want to grow where before we even get the permits to start building. Laurel the Designer gave us a site plan, and we are to provide, to be specific

So it was time to plumb the Pinterest page I’ve set up for my dream garden to draw up a plan.

I’ve never been much of a gardener.  I don’t like dirt under my fingernails, and I have something of a grey thumb. Also — hello — bugs.  But drawing up the plan I could see why people enjoy this part of it most of all.  It was hard work, but it was also fun.

Here’s some of what we’re thinking:

We have to put in a tree, so how about a nice plum? (Prunus domestica Stanley) 

We’ll have an arbour to the Main House yard, so let’s put in the wisteria they already own and must replant.

Along the fence, an herb garden in pots.

Beside the front door, a beautyberry (aka mulberry).

And crowning everything, our live roof.

There’s oodles more, of course, ornamental grasses in pots, tulips and daffodils in the live roof; and on the side of the laneway that faces west, in a narrow space between our wall and the neighbour’s fence, a bed of river rock flanked by ferns, bleeding hearts, and oregon grape.

Lookit me!  I’m a gardener! And who knows — it’s such a tiny space to garden in, we may be able to pull this off.

Keep those green-thumbs crossed!