My Little Garden

It’s in the awkward stage right now

My garden from my upstairs window

My small back yard has been planted, soaker hoses laid out, and now I’m waiting for everything to fill in. Right now it’s at what I call the ‘awkward teenage stage’, where there are some sprouts but it’s hard to tell what’s a weed and what’s a flower.

I can see some rogue sunflowers popping up for sure. I didn’t plant them, they must have been seeds that dropped from last year’s garden. I’ll let them grow for now and see if they take over or not.

There are sweet peas along the whole white fence, but the sprouts are interspersed with bald patches. I don’t know if the seeds were duds there, if birds got them, or if the dirt is just unsuitable for them. Maybe they’ll germinate late, maybe the ones next to the bald areas will fill in. Time will tell. The yard and its ecology are still new to me, as this is only the second summer we’ve been here.

The main part of the yard is supposed to be wildflowers, but now that we’ve had a few days of drenching rain I see that there are bald spots in there too. My hope is that those spots won’t be obvious as the flowers grow in.

I planted creeping thyme inside the cement ring and it’s coming in nicely. I plan to have the creeping thyme as the base for future gardens instead of grass, if it turns out nicely and is nice to walk on. If not, then I’ll replace it with microclover.

I’m on a war against grass this year.

I put edging in along the perimeter of the fence so the main area lawn doesn’t infect my back yard. I don’t see the point in grass, not in a yard this small. Yes, the condo management company hired lawn care people that will cut the grass in our back yards, but still, I’m tired of grass. I want more of a meadow back there.

Part of the trouble with gardening is that I need to picture it filled in, or what it’ll look like in a few years. At my old house I had tons of space to experiment with but here my yard is so little that I don’t want to waste space or put something in that takes up too much space.

As it is, I have two rose bushes and a lilac bush. All three are very small right now but I know that the lilac will become gigantic if allowed. The roses may or may not get too big. My Morden Sunrise rose bush has never been very big. Last year it was the biggest ever at about eighteen inches tall. Much of that died back over winter so it’s back to about a foot tall and that’s after the rain. I feel like it’ll never be big.

I bought a new rose bush, a Campfire Rose, and was disappointed that the blooms weren’t heavily scented. I liked the look of the flowers — yellow centres fringed in a pretty coral-red — but the bush hadn’t bloomed when I bought it so I didn’t know it wouldn’t smell as strong as other roses. That one may or may not stay in the yard, we’ll see.

My spring snow crabapple is doing all right as well, even though one side is looking a bit empty and sparse. I think it was damaged in transit, or maybe the roots got snapped in the wrong spots. I’m hoping it’ll fill in soon but I know it’ll take a few years.

I’m pleased with it so far, but am impatient to see the final product.