There is nothing quite as calming as a long, cool and green
lawn. In my dreams I see protective
borders, portable chairs and tables, arbors and croquet sets, a writer’s hut at
bottom of the garden -- all very Virginia Woolf. Then I wake up, plagued with the larger
question.
Is it wise to plan an ambitious garden for a property I don’t
own? Why not? What is ownership
anyway? A capitalist construct at best,
I tell myself. My charming landlady,
H.S., will of course have to agree to a plan, but I will make a strenuous
argument about improving her property and, furthermore, she can come and stay
whenever she likes.
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| The Lawn at Bellefield |
I don’t know anyone other than myself crying for more grass
and a larger lawn area. The thinking
seems to be in the other direction, removing as much grass a possible. Most gardens are developed by the occupant
with this in mind: eliminating grass and then planting bed by bed, pocket by
pocket, as the mood strikes.
Instead, you can turn to a garden pro to help you out, but
that can be disappointing if you are new to the site. The most successful merger of occupant and
pro occurs when the occupant has sat in her garden for a year or more, observing
and making note of the shifting light patterns, base conditions, and habits of
use. It’s also a good idea to look at
what other people in the neighborhood are planting, to see what works.
After a year of this, my thinking has grown stale, and I’ve
turned the backyard over to Gail Wittwer-Laird.
You might remember her from the August 30, 2011 post “Growing for the
Table.” To help her get started, I asked
the Village for a block and lot plan, but it did not locate the house on the site
correctly. Nor did it locate the aging
cesspool, a discovery that fortunately came early enough to avoid
problems.
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| Gail Wittwer-Laird & Maxwell |
Gail began by measuring, photographing, and laying out a plot
plan with the major features correctly located.
While I tinkered with the side border shared with my neighbor, Gail was
charged with coming up with a simple, elegant plan for the back.
I currently use three different areas for sitting. The first is a sunny spot on the western
property line. The second is at the rear
of the property, in front of a recovered bed, now in its second season. The
third is under maples on the eastern property line, where a children’s
worktable is set up for August visits, and where I can escape the cascade of
falling black walnuts. The most
important sitting area – off the kitchen, does not yet exist. It is presently a doormat of small concrete
slabs, wet with run-off from the roofline.
The entire backyard is enclosed with a 5’ tall hogwire fence, a
surprisingly elegant solution to corralling dogs and small children, while
eliminating grazing deer.
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| The Blank Backyard at Livingston Street |
If a lawn is to invite you to linger, it has to be intimate,
to have a sense of enclosure. Unless you
are blessed with a river or a lake you will have to build your enclosures –
buildings, walls, shrub borders. On
Livingston Street, most properties are uniform – long rectangular plots, the
house close to the street, perhaps a barn, shed or garage at the end of the
driveway or tucked in the rear. We have
none of the above; instead there is a gated and fenced portion of the driveway
for tools, trash, etc. No beauty
here.
Happily, there are only a few rules to remember about lawns:
- Locate the septic system before you put a shovel in the ground.
- Think about your lawn as a green garden. No matter the dandelions and oddly appearing groundcovers, just mow them as you would grass.
- All gardens should provide privacy and bit of seclusion. Your green garden is no different. Start at the boundary lines and work inwards. Borders should be generously deep. If there are views worth capturing on neighboring property, leave openings to capture them.
- Plan your seating areas carefully. Here on Livingston Street most of the shade trees are black walnuts with a few maples on the eastern property line. By the fall of my first year here, I learned my favorite seating areas were in war zones and I was hammered by falling walnuts. I moved to the maples, where I safely spent the cooler months.
At the moment, just to have something to grow, I’ve planted
out the existing oval bed at the rear with hosta, fern, astilbe, hellebore and
hydrangea. The front door garden is in
its second year and with a few changes has settled in happily. This spring we’ve added the companion border
to our neighbor, doubling the size.
Respecting the established color palette, we’ve stayed with her blues
and pinks, and added several whites. We’re
gambling on a predominately phlox border, ordering older varieties from
Perennial Pleasures in Northeast Vermont, and filling in with newer varieties
from local nurseries. We’ve tucked in a
few meadow rue for stature and left spaces for peonies.
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| From The Front Door |
The “We” has changed.
Natalka is concentrating most of her work on the other side of the
river, but stops by for an occasional tweaking.
Benito has taken over the heavy work, coming by on Saturday mornings for
a few hours. The beds have been heavily
dug, prepared with a beautiful edge, extensively weeded and heavily mulched. I’m hoping the maintenance has now been
reduced to watering, deadheading and staking, which are all manageable tasks
for me.
The overall plan is almost complete, and I will share it with you when it is finished, that is if it earns a seal of approval from H.S.
