I like this quotation but this year my garden looks at me reproachfully when I venture to visit - where have I been and why am I so neglectful?
Last year I tackled a long time plan and replaced my front lawn with a perennial garden. I hired Eric Saywell to do the hardcore landscaping - remove the existing lawn, build the beds, restore the driveway. Left to my own devices, I would have simply replaced the rectangle of grass with a rectangle of plants. Fortunately I deferred to Eric's design sense as well as his building skills. He built three beds of varying elevations and tied them in to the existing driveway. The result is much more interesting than my flat plot would have been.
Recognizing that the garden would benefit from expert advice, I made up a list of plants that I like (echinacea, sedum, peonies) and don't like (hostas - I have no justification for my aversion to hostas except to say they're dumb) and presented it to the designer at my local nursery. He reviewed my list - made some additions and deletions - and gave me a planting layout.
I put in about half of the suggested plants last fall and supplemented with garden mums. The resulting "instant garden" had passersby stopping to admire so I was quite pleased with my efforts.
The perennials survived the winter and their new companions have been added. I feel I should be out in the garden every day weeding, watering, talking to the flowers but it seems I'm a fairweather garden friend. It's been too hot, too cold, too damp. I've been too tired to spread fresh mulch, too distracted to investigate the cause of the brown edges on the hydrangeas. I suspect the root of my neglect is the knowledge that I'll soon be leaving this garden when I move to the farm. I'm trying to prepare both of us for our eventual parting.
