After losing nearly four years of summer gardening opportunities due to a return to school (including a summer for recovery), my backyard looks like a junkyard slum. It is overgrown with weeds and wildflowers, an untidy, unattended compost pile, piles of wood from two homes that had trees removed and that still need to be cut and chopped, and piles of junk/scrap/recyclable items that came from the remodeling of our kitchen and sunroom.
This beautiful new sunroom looks out over all this mess. Consequently, there is hardly a day that goes by that I'm not reminded of the mess.
NO MORE!! This is the summer to clean up the back yard. In May, I opened my front yard gardens. I weeded, planted, Preened, and mulched. I planted annuals that were likely to need very little care like impatiens and pansies next to mature perennials. I figured with a little care thoroughout the summer, they would hold their own while I focused my energy in the back yard.
I considered the big picture. What did I want it to look like at the end of the summer as well as by the beginning of next spring? I decided upon "zones" of improvement over a three season effort (think Excel spreadsheet).
Zone 1: Vegetable Garden (southwest corner of yard)
Zone 2: New Northeast Garden (by the barn)
Zone 3: Wildflower Garden (northwest corner)
Zone 4: Compost Pile (far northwest corner)
Zone 5: Logs and Brush Piles (all along north yard and far southeast corner)
Zone 6: Retaining Wall and Pond Garden (along the house on the s-east)
While all this activity is going on, my husband is working on the barn and greenhouse. Conveniently, when he needs me, I can help him and vice versa.
My list is in a sequential order of completion. The vegetable garden is nearly finish. It has been doubled in size to accomodate my herbs from the retaining wall that will be removed sometime this fall or next spring. All those plantings need homes this summer while that corner of the yard along the back of the house is renovated next year.
I would like to attach pictures - especially "before" and "during" pictures - a recording of my progress as this project develops through out the next few months. (Hope my lovely sister will be able to talk me through that operation!)
Until my software problems became severe, I checked this site daily. The minute I turn my back, you re-appear (like a bad penny? No!)
How clever of you to build a sunroom that will force you to take care of your yard. You have your work cut out for you. As to your Excel spreadsheet: Although I spend much time on the computer, my yard improvement spreadsheet is in my head. I can only bear contemplating a baby-step at a time. Now that you've made your "to do" tables, it will be staring you in the face!
Your yard and your plans for it sound great--as long as you are the one doing the work. Good luck! (I think over-achieving runs in your family.)
Ya know...I feel guilty about taking you away from all this work, but I bet your dear husband is going "YES!" Cop Car, what she didn't tell you was that he doesn't want her messing with his stacks of "Stuff"! It's those stacks of stuff that are making HER crazy! lol
I applaud you for looking at this project logically, rather than taking a scattershot approach. I can't wait to see some of the plants that you've purchased. The view will be lovely when you are done. Would you care to take on the renovation of OUR back view?? Huh? Huh??
If you have the pictures, send them to me in an e-mail, or bring them so I can scan them, and we'll post them to your blog while you are here. It will be MUCH easier for me to share what I know hands-on, rather than trying to talk you through it on the phone or here.
Congrats on getting your yard in shape!
Sis - Alas, both of us will be gone again for several days, so he won't be able to add to the piles, nor will I be able to take away. Hrumpf.
But I will get some pictures. And you can help me post them.
Frankie--Buffy knows (I've told her a billion times!) that I do the scatter-shot approach to most things. That way, I relieve others of having to take on that chore. You are free to be organized. Truly, I should take your above-listed zones and, by figuring out where they fit on our land, follow your plan. But, it sounds like so much work!