My Dirt Canvas

It’s not easy combining households. The logistics of finding space for the collected belongings of two families was the easy part. The new space was big enough. Finding my space, a space where I could nurture my creativity and feel comfortable making most decisions without consulting the group—that was a bit challenging for me. But I quickly found it out in the yard. While everyone else unpacked, organized and decorated the interior space, I was dreaming of all the possibilities our new landscape held.

Luckily I had a blank canvas and a few existing elements for inspiration. A stone wall ran between the house and the front yard, the lichen covered stones giving it the impression that it had been there long before the house was built. It was beautiful in its imperfection, reminding me of the rambling stone walls you find in the woods that long ago served as property boundaries. The lower third of the dozen plus big trees in the front yard had been limbed giving the overall effect of a well-maintained patch of woodland.  Unlike most homes in the neighborhood, our front yard wasn’t a fussy manicured lawn. It was a mix of imperfect grass, an assortment of wild ground covers and beautiful patches of moss. Much like the yard at our old house, it would only need mowing every other week during the growing season. A long, straight brick walkway alongside a sad bed of struggling hostas led from the driveway to the front door providing and underwhelming greeting to visitors. Other than a few unremarkable, overgrown foundation plantings, the space between the house and the stone wall was a sea of woodchips punctuated by some stepping stones.

As anxious as I was to get the yard transformation underway, there wasn’t much to do that first fall other than take advantage of some end-of-season garden center sales. I planted my purchases in a holding area along with the plants I’d brought from my former gardens and settled in for a long winter of dreaming and planning.

As soon as spring was in the air, I dug my edger out of the garage and started “carving” out new gardens in front of the house, and filling the new spaces with composted topsoil. Beautiful curves replaced straight lines, and I began to see the gardens that would soon be filled with my plants and the many that were generously donated by my gardening friends.

I took up all the bricks from the front walkway and used them to outline the new gardens. The stepping stones that once floated in that sea of woodchips were repurposed to make a small patio just outside the front door. 

Fountains gifted from a friend became a focal point surrounded by river rocks sourced free for the taking from Facebook Marketplace. We invested in Corten steel landscape edging for the areas of the garden where we had raised the soil level. Once we had filled planters throughout the gardens with annuals for continuous color it was time to sit back and admire our work.
A year later we would be tearing it all down and starting over. But that’s another story.