Well here is Spring and I always feel like I can't get enough done in the short time we have before it is just too darn hot to work outside. Like twilight. (Not the Vampire movie, although the mosquitos here could be considered our personal vampires. Ugh!!)
When I am feeling this way, it is good for me to review my "done" photos. Do you keep those? You should. It is a great way to get over yourself and that evil voice that reminds you that you "never get anything that you want to get done, done".
One of the many things I wanted to do to this house and yard when we moved here 11 years ago was to landscape the huge backyard/hill area. Of course I wanted the big pool. That didn't happen. Nothing happened. Except I paid $500.00 every year for someone to come with a weed saw and whack the vegetation on the expanse of hill. For 4 years in a row. Awful.
Then one year I said "I could have $2000.00 in landscaping done by now and started my biggest project yet. I figured I could get it paid off in one year. Ha! But I digress.... The following is a before, during and after of the "Color Theory Garden". A 30' circle of raised beds, a "Time/Thyme Garden", an arbor with a swing, my arty bottle arbor, a little storage shed that I love, a bistro area and a pond. Oh and the rainwater collection area. Enjoy!
The "Jungle Hill" of vinca, dewberry, hackberry trees and general weeds BEFORE
Scraped off and into 3 levels with the posts set for the bottle arbor and the Thyme Garden post.
I wasn't going to have a pond but when they were scraping it, I knew that if I ever wanted one it had to be now or never. Anything ABOVE the Color Theory Garden wasn't ever going to get in up that hill otherwise. Our sons Joshua and Jordan are laying the liner to the pond and waterfall here. In hindsight, it should have had straight sides and a plant shelf so that we could have stacked rocks and not shown the liner. Things I didn't know then.
Here the water was added. The pond is about 8' across by 12' long. Josh had built the raised boxes for the beds and the bottle arbor was up but not painted yet. The rocky area with the big tree to the right got to be a bistro area the next season. The clock is up on the Thyme Garden in the center.
Now the beds have their respective color plants in the wheel with a little artistic license. The Swing Arbor is up but not painted and the little shed is being built. Yea!!!
This view is from the Swing Arbor. The Thyme Pots are painted in colors to match the color wheel and to designate the thymes. Red for Rose Thyme, Yellow for Lemon Thyme, Green for Lime Thyme, Blue for Creeping Thyme. I also added smaller pots on top of those. Silver for Silver Thyme, Purple for Lavender Thyme, Orange for German Thyme. The barrels up against the deck are 30 gallons each. I ended up with 12 across to collect the rainwater off of our roof.
This was the Winter view of the Color Theory Gardens in February. We had a brutal summer and a bitter cold winter this year (as did everyone) Most of my beds have a few plants and herbs in them, but need to be redone. *sigh*. I will post the re-do progression of those as it happens. I have TONS of soapwort, heartleaf sage, arugula and cilantro if anyone needs any!!
My point to this (and there IS one) is that we all feel like we never accomplish all that we want to do.
Pictures help us put into perspective what our mind numbs us to believing. That things were always done, the same, blah, blah, blah. We can look and say, "Oh yes. I remember how it USED to be" and sit in the swing and have a glass of wine and listen to the waterfall and be refreshed and renewed to actually DO something more.
Enjoy.
Rowena
