Gardening

So, I'll post every 2 years. How's that?
Roze and I have become obsessive gardeners.
It started in Marblehead about 6 years ago on a rocky little terrace. Where we lived, Highland Terrace, lived up to its name. We were in fact on a terrace carved out who knows when. The back yard featured a wall of huge granite blocks, the likes of which you see making up seawalls or jetties - like 5' x 3' x 3'. These blocks served as a retaining wall for our neighbors' yard, which was anywhere from 3 to 8 feet above the level of our yard. Our house itself sat about 8 feet above the road bed, which in turn sat about 20 feet above the level of the bike path that led to Swampscott. Got it? A series of steps on a big scale, each "riser" being about 8 feet tall.

We reclaimed a section of the terrace to the right of the house that sloped from street level up about 8 feet to yard level. We also had a little patch created by walls and walkways, about 10 x 4. We started with the existing stuff, which wasn't much - daisies, lilies and some annuals. But in those 2-3 years, we dipped our toes into the perennial waters and got hooked. Delphiniums, speedwells, cleomes, hosta, rudbeckias were our greeters at the door to perennials. Some - delphiniums, cleomes - we abandoned, as they proved not hardy enough for the rockier-than-usual soil the 19th century engineers used to build the terraces. (And we also had a very cold winter in 2003, and lost lots of stuff.) Others - speedwell, rudbeckias - have become favorites, and some even made the trip from Marblehead to Tudor Road.

I was elated when I discovered that Sunset had a Northeastern version of its "Western Garden" book, which I had used my main reference when I lived in California. (Back then, in the 80s, you couldn't get Sunset nor Coors beer west of the Rockies.) That book is our "Joy of Cooking" for the garden. The go-to manual for the basics, with a depth that continues to surprise us. Just as the "Joy of Cooking" can guide you from the low (how to make muffins) to exotic (how to dress a squirrel), Sunset's book will tell you how to grow a marigold or graft an apple tree.

At Tudor Road, the garden has evolved and expanded. There are now 6 main areas (on a 4,200-square-foot lot!):
1. The mixed flower/veggie patch pictured that gets 7-8 hours of full sun;
2. The shady wall along the NW side of the house;
3. The rock garden and arbor;
4. The shady front of the house with a NE exposure;
5. The new for 2008 perennial/annual bed on the E side of the house w/5-6 hours full sun;
6. The new for 2008 herb/perennial/annual garden on the E side of the house w/5-6 hours full sun.

There's lots of little spots too: mini-mixed plantings of annuals and perennials along the neighbors' E fence; the beds on the E side that get blasted for about 4 hours then fall into deep shade; a small patch of Lady in Red hydrangea and Siskiyou pink gaura next to the garage - you get the idea.

In 2006 we spent $200 on sod that died in 2007. In 2007 we ripped the sod out and put down gravel. We also designed the pattern you see in the picture for the vegetable area. (Actually, I said "Let's organize this area," and proceeded to think in terms of squares and rectangles. Roze -- she of the left-brain -- drew out the pattern you see.) The idea for that area - as in most of our plantings - is to mix it up. Veggies with flowers. Herbs with annuals. Bulbs with perennials.

We're also organic. No pesticides. We use oil spray, ladybugs, water, compost and organic fertilizer. Our strategy is to help the plants out-compete the bugs and diseases. We also have 2 cats that keep the critters away.

OK, gotta get to work. In future posts - this year! - we'll chat about the zen of gardening, rewards of risk-taking, the balance between what we want and what nature gives us, new to us plants for 2008, food and all that other good stuff.