Rehab time:
At least the pumpkin is happy.
This post is rather a mess, but then so is that area.
The Autumn project is to completely rehab the veggie patch.
Currently the veggie patch is a mess. It started life as the rose garden, except the entire property became a rose garden, so I couldn't really call that area the rose garden. Over time I started thinning out the under-performing roses in that area until it got to the point where there was a lot of empty space. I moved most of the remaining very good roses, all Hybrid Teas, to the gully area, creating a cutting garden.
'Laguna', now brutally hacked back, proved to be too vigorous for its support:
Thus the area became the veggie patch, except with a few somewhat forlorn leftover roses, askew non-functioning lighting, and the few surviving members of the landscape architect's original plantings, the survivors being four Camellia sasanquas, an aggrieved Camellia japonica that has never done well, it being too sunny, and a few boxwood I've neglected to trim.
Professionals planted them. I limbed them up into standards so they would not look quite so sad.
At least the pumpkin is happy.
If this was a couch, I would not hesitate to move it:
The gravel path has heaved and sunk over the years. It became worse last fall, because of the pond rebuild. Extra soil piled in the area ended up mixed up in the gravel. I need to remove it all, and either have a thick mulch path or flagstone pavers. And there's still some of that damn Soleirolia soleirolii I've been trying to get rid of for years. The landscape architect's revenge.
The shape is a challenge--it's roughly a quarter circle abut the house's south east corner. Dealing with a square or rectangle is far easier for an amateur than a quarter circle. At least for this fairly clueless amateur. The goals, in no particular order, are:
1. Screening from neighboring houses--both for their privacy as well as ours! I always want the sense of being amidst plants, not amidst other houses. The climbing roses provide that (somewhat) now, but I am pondering espalliered fruit trees as replacements. Fruit and screening...
2. Ease-of-veggie-growing. We do love our home-grown tomatoes, peppers, spinach and so forth.
3. A clean, easily walkable path without that odd and unnecessary bend. I like direct.
4. It should look, you know, pretty.
This post is rather a mess, but then so is that area.
Funny, I noticed the bend in the path almost as immediately as the edging...how about cleaner lines, and gravel path right to the planters? Very classic and understated. Just sayin'...
ReplyDeleteSounds like some nice garden renovation plans you are dreaming up!
Gosh how I hate gravel. Mikey says if you want to be remembered, lay gravel. People will curse you for decades after you are gone.
ReplyDeleteThat quarter-round shape is pretty. I wonder if you could lay out longer, skinnier raised beds in a fan shape, perpendicular to the wall instead of lined up against the wall? The path would have to be closer to the house, I suppose. It might not work if there's much of a slope.
Looking forward to seeing your progress on this project.
Yes Desert, that bend bothers me. It will be changed, no matter what.
ReplyDeleteRenee, at least the guys that put down this gravel put landscape fabric underneath. It's going to be 99% removable--that's something, anyway. But I don't want to be cursed in the future! :(