What Now???

The Hesitant Gardener had to go out of town for work leaving the brown bullet to supervise. Well the workers put in much of the patio pavers and there is a definite slope that isn't working for me. Soooooo...had to call the landscaper and tell her that they are going to have to redo the pavers. So sad because it will throw us back a few days and we were hoping to have the patio finished by Derby Day (tomorrow). The rain that poured the first three days of this week set us back a few days and now having to redo the pavers isn't great but I know Andrea (our landscape architect) won't be happy with this - hope she isn't happy with it because I'm not! Lesson learned: Never leave a dog to do a person's job - I think the Brown Bullet was sleeping on the job!

The Brown Bullet

Did I mention the 83 pound chocolate labrador retriever who roams our yard, hiking his leg on anything in sight and who is affectionately known as “The Brown Bullet” due to his propensity to run wildly through the yard at high speed after birds and squirrels? He knows no boundaries and hasn’t met a bush he couldn’t kill in short manner due to his turbo peeing ability. His real name is Charlie Guinness (Charlie his given name by the lab rescue and Guinness well I am sure you can figure that out). Charlie G. loves nothing more than to bask in the sun while lying in the yard with a nice soft hosta for a pillow. We’ll see how he likes the garden/courtyard transformation. He doesn't seem too thrilled about losing the nice green ground cover he loved to lie in and his favorite bushes. I am sure 3dogGardener can relate to the challenges of gardening "Where the Wild Things Are".

The lonely hydrangea from the previous pictures has been hilled in and the ivy is almost all gone. I kind of think green (ivy) is better than brown dirt but I guess it is now the Hesitant Gardener's task to turn the brown into more green without spending too much green.

Blank Slate

Fresh Slate

A lot has been happening at the Hesitant Gardener's house. In a desire to start with a fresh slate in the back yard which was overgrown with honeysuckle and ivy we hired someone to come in and clean out the entire space. They took down an old flowering crab apple tree which had been badly damaged in a previous ice storm. The tree gave a good last effort as it was blooming madly the day they came to take it down--sort of like your hair looking the best it ever did the day you are scheduled for a haircut. Now that the backyard is bare dirt I am having second thoughts about taking out all of the ground cover but Dwight says it is too invasive. He has been waging a personal battle against the ivy for years and the ivy has been winning. I guess he figured having hired guns on his side would finally do the job. Pictures of the bare dirt ready for landscaping and hardscaping will be posted. We had them "hill in" (a technical gardening term that the Hesitant Gardener just picked up) a beautiful hydrangea and all my hostas. Pray for my lovely hydrangea to make it through this!

Economy of Scale

I have a lot to learn about the need for the correct scale in order to make the right impact. Cherry G posted a comment that the tulips in the picture are at least three reasons to be proud. The funny thing is that I see now that although beautiful individually, tulips are most effective in a large mass. The tulips going up our front sidewalk are too few and too few apart for the size of our house. Next year I think I need to double the number of tulips and also perhaps weed and mulch the border of the side walk?? Or maybe add some hyacinth with the tulips??? Any ideas? Yes I know, I need to weed and mulch.

Unrealistic Expectations Aside....

The comment by 3DogGardener brings up some good issues - You know how the airbrushed photos of supermodels set us up for unrealistic expectations for ourselves? Well I feel the same way about the pictures of gardens I see in magazines. Surely they are airbrushed and augmented because no way no how is my garden going to meet the unrealistic expectations of colorful blooming flowers, perfectly proportioned plants and the bountiful weed-free kitchen gardens that could sustain a family of six which are portrayed in those pictures. I would settle for something much more realistic and achievable. Perhaps 3DogGardener is right - I need to put down the Southern Living and take a look around my neighborhood at some of the other yards that look beautiful despite heavy clay soil and mature trees rendering thick shade. While walking the other night I did see a beautiful natural presentation of ferns, hostas and groundcover under a large tree. I will post a picture of that and see if there is anyway I can achieve something even close to it.

Watching The Masters

As I spend the afternoon watching The Masters instead of working on the yard/garden I have concluded that golf and gardening are mutually exclusive. It is totally true. My husband is a golfer and our yard has suffered because of it despite the fact that he comes from a long line of avid gardeners. Every time his father comes over he asks if we need to borrow his lawn mower. The fact that I don’t particularly care for manual labor has had an exponential affect on the state of our yard and garden also. My friend Joe mentioned that perhaps I should set up a web cam of my garden project so that his retired neighbors could watch my yard as they do his. That brought to mind a meeting of our neighborhood association when my husband was appointed to the snow removal committee and the woman down the street said "As long as it isn't the landscaping committee." That should give you an idea of where we stand with our yard/garden project. All I can say is "Go Phil Mickelson and Freddie Couples."

Before Pictures

Beware these may be traumatic for some to view - Yikes!

Before

This is a before picture showing our backyard where we have recently added a garage (to the left side of the picture). Much of that will be hardscape as it is almost total shade much of the day.

New Beginnings

Ahh spring is the time of the year when we all love to head to the garden shop with unabashed hope and optimism that our efforts and investments will pay off with a garden similar to those we see in magazines. I truly believe that some people are meant to be gardeners and some people aren't. I want to be the former but I have a nagging fear that I am actually more the latter. I have had inspiration before but I seem to run out of gas as the season progresses. Partly due to frustration over my shady yard, gazillion weeds, and clay soil but also partly due to a bit of a lack of focus. This blog is going to be my inspiration to "stick with it" this year as I attempt to turn a yard 0f overgrown weeds, clay, dirt, rocks and general wildness into a stunning garden and outside space. I will definitely have some help along the way or this blog would have to be called the Desperate Gardener rather than the Hesitant Gardener.