Tuesday, January 30, 2007

How Does Your Garden Grow?

The neighbourhood we've moved into is quite nice. The houses are all well-kept, nice cars, the gardens immaculate. And then there's our house. There's nothing wrong with our house or the cars, but oh our garden... We have the dubious distinction of having the messiest and worst front garden in the neighbourhood. I'm told this is an honour and that I should be proud, but to be honest, I'm more embarrassed.

This picture was taken from my bedroom window yesterday as Elliot slept. It's a bit difficult to understand the layout of the front of the house from this picture, but basically on the left (unseen in the photo) is the proper driveway (which is very, very steep going downwards and therefore almost unuseable. Hence the second driveway built running through the middle of the garden, which is pictured. Between this driveway and the door are meant to be decorative rocks (which get kicked about) which currently is littered with tree droppings and weeds. The only grassy bit (surrounding the massive tree) is covered in overgrown weeds and blownaway branches, and yet more tree droppings. There are a few plant pots which house dying bushes and weeds. How very lovely, don't you think?

I don't know how to make this nicer. I can sweep and clear out the branches and weeds, plant some flowers or cute little trees in the pots. I already have full-length window pots with flowers and some hanging baskets. We're considering cutting down the tree, but how is this miserable front garden ever going to turn out nice?

The back is a different story entirely, I'm fully inspired by it and have a zillion plans... a vegetable plot, clematis, red roses (not that I know a thing about gardening) but I'm at a loss for the front. Sigh. Thanks for listening.


  1. good luck with the gardening. i and my kittehs killed way too many plants over the years so i wouldn't know where to even start. Can you move any of the stuff from the back to the front?

  2. I am not a gardner either..sorry no help. I say plant some grass. You can never go wrong with grass

  3. I would have thought that bit wasn't part of your garden at all. What you need to do is de-weed ever spring and keep the grass short, if you like plant some low maintence bulb flowers like daffadils or tulips that will reappear each year with no effort from yourself. Try and keep the tree, it rescues that spot, even if you cut it down you'll be left with a stump or a gapping hole. Good luck :-)gardening isn't easy...

  4. Get rid of the rocks!!! I hate those things to no end. If you keep the area well mulched you will have a lot fewer weeds and it will look a lot nicer. You could even plant some nice bush roses in that area. They are low maintenance and often will bloom year round.

