Quietly Moving My Own Earth-Spring on the Mid-Coast-Dave builds a Fence and a Planter’s Delight
Édouard Vuillard (1868-1940)
The Artist’s Paint Box and Moss Roses (1898)
National Gallery of Art
Washington DC
April, the fastest month of the year, has walked out the door with her car keys never to return. I am never sure what it is that I do in April but no matter where I live it goes by quickly. This April, I waited for spring and planned another “project.” My, this is dangerous. Dave and I wanted to clear the back corridor, a forgotten space that has never had the slightest bit of attention since the garage was built in 1912. Not only have we ignore it, we abused it. There is wild hydrangea that covers part of it in the summer but the rest looks unfortunate, unloved. It looks like it was fostered out to a family of happy gorillas. As an interior house cat, I wanted to escape into the Vuillard painting and contemplate the shades of rose against the grey paneling…but, no…
Let me begin at the beginning, two years ago, Dave built a fence or moved a fence to the other side of the driveway in an effort to create a larger space for growing. It seemed simple enough. Oh, wait…that’s right, someone had to jack hammer the 100 year old asphalt out of existence. I’ve blocked that out. Reality is not a Pintrest account.
It seemed as if we were embarking on a new career. The LLC would read…Glacial Construction, INC.
May, 2022-I blame COVID when every inch of our home seemed magnified so that we were in a constant state of reviewing and retooling.
This is the pre-photo from the year before. We never used this space but once we started talking about an apartment, to be built in the basement, we knew had to have the fence, and some form of an enlarged yard, not a garden….something simple…sure.
This photo is May of that year. In Maine the building and doing season is short. We have from May through glorious summer to get things going, right when all the neighbors return for the season and we are all more visible. This seemingly endless project was the last thing we EVER wanted anyone to see. Alas…that was not to be. Everyone saw the construction phase. Everyone had an opinion…my favorite.
In between, the endless trips to Lowes and Home Depot, to Rankins, there were summer activities and guests but somehow we created a reasonable….garden and didn’t file for a divorce. Notice we are not hoof and jowl in the photos above. I wonder if we were speaking at this point. There is nothing like construction to test limits.
Beloved friends, our neighbors and great pals from Charlotte appear in a rather sweet garden…This was last summer, 2023. We all went down with COVID about 15 minutes after this photo was taken but the fence was mostly finished…. Patience…Fortitude, Temperance and maybe…Justice.
The garden was set in June, 2023. I stopped breathing into a paper bag by this time. The large set plant in the back is a Weigela. No two people pronounce it the same way.
This much fussed over little garden, built on that driveway, was originally the Old School Road, built for horse and cart in the 1800’s. It is now a sanctuary, a blood sucking, money hole sanctuary but our very own enclave, a work in progress.
You think this story is over but if you garden you know that it is never over. There is just another story…what about the corridor garden? Brace yourself and be aware that this is good compared to what it looked like a week ago.
As mentioned, this has been masked by a screen since God was a boy, untended, unseen but had shade and sun potential, so goodie, another black hole.
We did do the front garden yesterday. It is a tiny, but not that tiny. If we took the investment that is sunk into this space over the years and had invested the same amount in Apple around 2006-ish, we could be sitting by the outdoor pool at my villa on the sea in Sardinia…. but why whinge.
Today was D-Day for Corridor Garden development when suddenly, I read a wee note on Social Media that one of our favorite gardeners was have her annual plant sale. So…”Out the Door and On the Road”….Off the hook, Kittens…because no one misses that sale. This wonderful woman digs up what is on offer right before our eyes and puts the glob of garden lusciousness into our grateful hands and then, she serves us tea and cake. I am restored by her generosity of spirit, her ability to dig like a longshoreman and the sugar rush. Once again inspired and following sage advice of an old friend…”Don’t Stand Up too Close,” we had an adventure and could come home and look with fresh eyes on the task ahead.
Dave and I walked away with Brunnera, my new favorite…
miles of pink and white Phlox and other stuff.
On the way home, it started to rain and get chilly so we canceled the Corridor rehab and made a nice fondue with Kirsch and decided to wait till tomorrow….
I will keep you informed on the progress of the last patch of undone garden because for the first time in the 34 years of our time in this little paradise, the whole postage stamp of a property with be cultivated.
I’ll leave you with is tale. The man who originally lived in this house was biblically close to the lady who lived in the sea captain’s home next door. He tended her rose garden among other things but never did a lick with his property. She had the house built for him according to legend. The sea captain’s daughter and the gardener never had time for our garden because he was busy planting vast numbers of rose bushes just next door. All of them are gone now. Two owners later, the entire rose garden was removed so that the children had more room to play. All that is left of that era is a picture of the gardener that was found in one of our horse hair walls when we remodeled in 2004. I was looking at a Jekyl rose just the other day and thinking of those two…funny how that is, the digging and the growing things of life.
Till next time….
Oh, I wish you'd called me for that plant trek. I would have adored tea and cake and maybe a runners or two. Your place looks just gorgeous right now--and your descriptions are always so funny, since God was a boy indeed! Onward!