A Work in Progress | Lily Swain | 2022
Moving to the countryside three years ago was a dream come true for our young family. We found a spacious fixer upper on an acre lot surrounded by trees and rolling farm fields. This idyllic setting offers endless inspiration for my work as a visual artist where I also have my home studio.
We bought our home in February so we had no idea what lay underneath several feet of snow in our yard. If the condition of our home inside was an indication of what waited for us outside, we had a lot of work to do.
As spring arrived and snow started melting we were able to get a sense of what our yard looked like; neglected and overgrown. Surrounding the enormous, wildly cobbled together, hazardous front porch was a large unkempt garden consisting mostly of brown cedar shrubs. Other garden spaces emerged out of the snow and as a novice gardener I had no idea where to begin.
Year one: let everything grow up so we know what we were dealing with.
Year two: tear down sketchy porch, pull out brown shrubs, level the ground, build a retaining wall, new porch, lay stone for walkway. Parge foundation, paint and lay pea stone around the perimeter of the house..and the list goes on. My super talented and determined husband single handedly tackled all of these projects (with a bit of help from our kids ;).
With help from my mom we planted some perennial cuttings from her garden including Phlox, Russian Sage, Peonies, Sedum and lots of Hostas in the back shade garden. In early spring I started Giant Sunflower seeds inside and by late August they were a sight to be seen, measuring more than thirteen feet tall!
Year three; as an enthusiastic but inexperienced gardener with a modest budget I began to dream up ideas for the front yard. I wanted to create the simple and considered aesthetic of a Japanese garden. I love tall grasses and thought it would be a low maintenance, fool proof option to fill in the space. Here is where my savior comes in; a family friend with one of the most beautiful gardens in Almonte, generously gifted me four varieties of tall grasses. Along with the cuttings he kindly included a diagram of how to plant them and the name of each species. Now at the end of the summer they have grown up to be spectacular and are definitely the star of the show.
I also attempted to grow some annuals including Petunias, Sunflowers and Morning Glories which have procured a single but brilliant blue flower. Much of what I planted was chomped on by deer in early summer so they didn't have much of a chance.
Needless to say my yard and gardens are a work in progress but I can't wait to make year four even better with a little more knowledge and experience under my gardening belt.
