Are you stressed? Stop and smell the flowers
Thanks, everyone, for my friendship garden
We were the first owners of a raised bungalow in a new development subdivision four years ago, after 16 years living in a leafy, established downtown neighbourhood in my small Maritime city.
After the pandemic, I wanted to bring my Mom to live with my husband and I. We had only one child left at home - our youngest son, who had just begun university. Our old house was unsuitable for my mom, who had mobility issues, and it was too complicated to renovate, so we sold the house for a profit, and moved to this humungous place (it isn’t actually humungous, but it feels that way to me, given that we raised three kids in a 1200 square foot, 60 year old box with 3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, and a tiny room that we called a bedroom, even though it didn’t have a closet or heating).
By comparison, this brand-new house that is double the size of our previous home, feels like a palace.
However, we bought the place in February. The front porch had not even been attached yet when we went to see it for the first time. Piles of snow disguised the footprint of the property. When we took possession in late February, 2022, it didn’t occur to me what the yard might look like when spring came, or how much work it would require.
Think piles of dense, red clay that dries to boulders, and a gravel driveway, and a backyard that is a steep slope, all the way down to the drain between us and the houses on the street behind us. (It’s hard to walk upright. Seriously.)
This was living in the suburbs.
There were no sixty-year old oak and maple trees along the street, no lilacs and old apple trees and forsythias and broken-down fences lining everyone’s back yard. The neighbours had no encroaching Virginia Creeper to curse. Just backyards completely bare and open. It was a wind tunnel filled with barking dogs.
Where my husband saw a crapload of dreaded weekend work, I saw an English garden.
Ever since I visited Scotland in 1997, I’ve wanted one, and I couldn’t really develop such a garden at our old north-facing house on Burlington Avenue. Too many trees, too much shade, too much moss.
But I wanted a riot of climbing roses, and hollyhocks, and a privacy hedge, bordered with oak, and birch, and maple, and white pine trees, and a walking gravel path around the entire house, and arches with climbing vines, and a stone patio built out over the slope, and a pergola on the tall deck upon which to plant grapes, and so, so, so many more flowers.
I know, I’m crazy. It really has been a crapload of work, but now, in our fifth summer, there are some wonderful developments.
I often wonder what my neighbours think, and I worry about resale value. We will want to downsize in the next few years, and what will a potential buyer think? Will they love the garden, or will they keep driving because all they see is work?
If you ever visit my street, you will be able to pick our house out right away, because we’re the only one with trees and bushes and flower beds, a veggie garden, a viburnum hedge that turns bright red in the fall, garden arches, and so much more.
What does everyone else have? Grass.
They’re all boring people, I tells ya.
But maybe they find our yard manic by comparison? Maybe they just can’t look at it because it makes them nervous?
Oh, well. What does it matter? My loved ones often tell me that I worry too much about what others think. They say, “it’s your house, and if it pleases you, that’s what’s important.”
In for a penny, in for a pound, my mother used to say. Since we’re only half done, we must keep going.
I was so impatient with the hedge. We spent close to $3,000 on Cheyenne Privet back in 2022. It was supposed to grow to 12 feet, a tight tangle of branches that was easily trimmed and very forgiving. At the nursery, they assured me the bushes would grow 1 -1/2 to 2 feet per year, but it has not grown anywhere near that quickly, and the privacy I so desperately wanted is nowhere nearing fruition.
We did build the stone patio two years ago, but we’ve found that it’s not faring very well, and we figure we built it wrong. Since I don’t have $15,000 to hire a professional to fix it, we will have to dig out all that gravel and dirt and start over. Now that it’s July 9, we’re almost at the point of saying, “well, maybe it’s okay for this year…”
But in this fifth summer, other things are truly wonderful. Tonight, I picked a bouquet of cut flowers from my own garden to place on my table, and it made me a little teary. I am overwhelmed with gratitude at being able to do this. Shasta daisy and lupins and false sunflower and some other pointy purple flowers that I don’t remember and some elderberry and bee balm..or is it joe pye weed? Not sure.
We’ve spent way too much money in garden centres, and we’ve put in a lot of sweat equity, but people have also given me things that I treasure - plants that have outgrown their own gardens, and so I’ve begun to call my back yard my friendship garden.
There’s something powerful and fulfilling about receiving plants from others, and giving people things that have grown in your own yard – not just the grapes and the tomatoes, but also the decorative ones I watch change from year to year. There’s something calming about sticking your hands in the dirt, and pulling out weeds, and dressing the beds with cedar mulch. There’s something satisfying about watching the hummingbirds enjoy the honeysuckle, and the perennial sweet pea.
I feel like a builder. I feel like a steward of something bigger than me. I feel the joy of creativity surging through me.
So, today, I want to pause and be thankful for my cut flowers. Thankful for the cherry tree because I think this month, we’ll have enough cherries for a whole pie.
I’m thankful even though the work isn’t done, and it’s not perfect. I’m drinking in the warm days, even though the hedge hasn’t grown in, and the patio needs to be fixed, and there’s so much more to plant (ah…that’s why everyone else just has grass!), and I likely won’t get much more done this year.
There’s so much to enjoy. I am so fortunate.