Tag Archives: monastery garden

The Monastery Garden Update

BEFORE:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAInstitutional plantings of agapanthus, spider condos (aka mock orange?), and some wan heather (or whatever those wan plants are that you can’t see in this picture).

AFTER:

the new front yardMatching tiered raised beds on either side of the front walkway with an Elephant Heart plum in the center on one side and a Frost peach in the center on the other side.

cleaned upFirst we had to strip out the agapanthus – a job that will never be completely done because this plant was designed by the devil – and then we removed the creeping amorphous shrubs that all the neighborhood spiders were using as their hatchery.

P1000988Then we got one of the neighbors to come dig up the beautiful weeping cherry that produces no cherries.  This was a sacrifice on my mom’s part.  I swear I didn’t force her to agree to let me put a fruiting tree in its place.

IMG_20140317_173816Then I began measuring and cutting the lumber for the beds.  Remember that I already designed the beds this winter?

P1000991I built the beds.  It took me about a week to build all the beds.  Philip leveled them in the ground and filled them with soil.

P1010002If you want to meet your neighbors in Santa Rosa all you have to do is work on a garden project all week.  Absolutely everyone will introduce themselves to you.  I love it!  You could work on a garden project for a year in McMinnville and no one will EVER talk to you or introduce themselves.  Ask me how I know.

IMG_20140319_192606Everyone in the neighborhood (so far) LOVES the raised bed design!  (They’ve all told me so and have been commenting on the progress excitedly for two weeks now).

view from porchI wanted the beds to be matching on either side of the path to give the walkway a sense of symmetry and formality.

the new front yardThis week I will be planting the beds out with most of the herbs they’ll have in them for this year.  The vegetables will go in next week.  Next year I will add more medicinal herbs to the beds as we’ll be building vegetable beds at the end of the driveway.

I’d be out there planting right now but I woke up too late and it’s already HOT out and I wouldn’t be able to water anything I planted without giving them major sunburn.  Next week I should have more to show you in these beds.

A New Monastery Garden

garden book biasOne of the worst things that happened in 2013 was my mom’s sister deciding she had to sell this house which would have meant we’d have to move.  One of the best things that happened this year was that our good friend bought her out and now owns half of it with my mom.  I can finally plan a garden here.  So on New Year’s Eve I pulled out all of my garden books for inspiration and took pictures of the front yard.  Then I measured the dimensions and graphed it out.

My garden bias is totally obvious.  It’s all about the herbs, the vegetables, and the – oh – I didn’t pull my rose books out but it’s also all about the roses.

useless shrubThis is what our front yard looked like on the last day of the year.  Remember when I took out the other spider condo?  There has been some major spider trafficking going on in the remaining one.  Check it out:

P1000435This is just a small sample of the vast collection of spider egg sacks in the undergrowth of this most useless bush.  But back to the before pictures.  There was still one more agapanthus clump on this side of the front garden.  It fell to Philip to destroy it.

view from drivewayLook at it just sitting there mocking us.  It knows, and we know, that that appearance of winter weakness is a sham.  Just a little rain and this thing will get BIGGER.  So yesterday, on the first day of the year, we set to work.

cleaned upAnd cleared that damn space!  I even swept the sidewalk.  Now we have to figure out what to do with all the stuff we pulled out.  Yard waste filled up very fast and there’s still such a big pile that Philip can’t get the car out of the driveway.  I feel so relieved to see those awful institutional plants eradicated.  Once they were gone I made a wonderful realization.  Remember the monastery garden I built at my last house?  Here, have a look:

monastery garden blue chairAnd from my office:

view from officeIt turns out that I can recreate this garden in my new one on a slightly smaller scale.  I can only allow 2′ for pathways which means no wheelbarrows.  But once these beds are filled up there won’t be any need for that.  Some of the beds will have to be smaller but I can totally do it.

graphed planThat weeping cherry tree will be getting removed once we can find someone to give it to who will dig it up.  I am so excited I’ve been spazzing out all day about it.  So, it’s time I get off the computer and do some other yard work.  Philip is going to go tackle the agapanthus on the other side of the walkway.