Well, ours wasn't quite that impressive. When we moved into the house thirteen years ago, the front yard was a motley lawn of Bermuda grass, crab grass and assorted weeds. The back yard was much the same.
I made the mistake of leaving the sprinklers on the front yard one day for about six hours and returned to find that the water, as water usually does, had all flowed downhill, under the house and into the basement. That was partly due to the composition of the soil here, which is part sand, part clay and a whole lot of rocks.
The front yard had some small shrubs up against the front of the house. The back yard had a boxwood hedge across the back and on the north side. There was also an enormous Eugenia hedge running along the east side from the front of the house back to the edge of the canyon. There will be more about this monster later.
Oh, and did I mention the canyon? We're on a slope that ends about thirty feet from the edge of the patio and falls off abruptly about a hundred feet or so into the canyon out behind the house. Right on the edge of the canyon is a beautiful Chinaberry tree. Its roots cling to the very edge. It's a precarious feeling and we're exploring ways to stabilize the hillside.
Anyway, that's what Cindy and I started with. We've been working on it for the last thirteen years. It's different now, a lot different, but it's still a work in process, and, since it's a garden, it always will be.
No comments:
Post a Comment