Garden Tour '06
I'm titling this post with the date because I can see doing this year after year. Having people oooh and aaaah over the house and grounds all weekend is the homeowner's equivalent to a paycheck. And because gardens are always in-progress, looking toward next year's garden, picturing extensions or boundaries of existing color, shape, and texture, is a given. So adding an audience to that process is natural.
It's a wonderful development, because it's forced me to more quickly implement the only way my husband and I can continue to live this rural lifestyle as we age: to cut back the time and resources we put into home-maintenance. So I've been down-sizing the gardens. What I'm now calling "holding-beds" have been reduced about 50% this summer, W. very happy to mow over them on his new Hustler lawn-machine. So that makes the one remaining area that I call "garden," doubly precious. The garden tour has made me concentrate my energy there, making it handleable and fun because of the aesthetic payoff at the end. Rarely have I decreased a project enough to get things neat, if not meticulous. This time I came close, and it's gratifying. Here's evidence:
W. has mowed things super-short and weed-wacked the edges to emphasize plants.
And below, the brickwork is weed-free for the first time in its twelve years. The lavender swath on the left has gone by, but there's still a suggestion of blue to tie in with the main garden across the brick walk. In garden's bottom corner, I've taken out the yellow corner that complicated the photo I posted a couple of weeks ago, replacing it with blue-green sedum plants. I'm counting on them to spread, working towards a blue-green/garnet color combination.
Here's a close-up, below, of the two colors, composed mainly of a euphorbia or spurge called "donkey's tail" and heuchera (coral bells). The idea is to have the blue-green fill in the mulched areas over the years.
And below is a close-up of the water-feature W. and I dug a few years ago. We lined it and put in a pump from Home Depot, and a couple of years ago W.'s mother gave us the little statue that had been in her yard. There are frogs at the boy's feet, shooting jets of water out their mouths. The yellow-green plant on the water is duck-weed, a welcome volunteer.
We had about 40-50 visitors on Saturday, and fewer on Sunday - maybe 15. People were appreciative, and left me with some good ideas - for the "holding beds," in particular. And I think we raised good money for the animal shelter, so it was a success all around.
I'm left with a question, though: women outnumbered men 10 to one. I wonder why this is. Anyone care to speculate?
Their spouses were playing golf or watching it on TV?
Should have asked them...clip board in hand...looking very official.
Everything looks wonderful. Now, if only it would stay that way for
a few weeks! But the minute your back is turned, it starts again. Sigh
Posted by: notdotdot | July 24, 2006 at 06:30 AM
Very nice.
Posted by: wally | July 24, 2006 at 06:50 AM
Beautiful. And I love the small gardens and the large swath of lawn.
PS I told you they would come in droves.
Men just don't go in for garden or house tours. I think it is universal and in their genes...(They probably think if they show up their wives or lady friends will get ideas and it will mean work for them) :)
Posted by: Chancy | July 24, 2006 at 05:28 PM
Beautiful, Mary Lee.
Chancy, my sweet hubby LOVES gardening, so much that I put horse blinders on his baseball cap everytime we are near a nursery...we would go broke with the plants that man would buy. ( truth - I am just as baaad!)
Posted by: Cowtown Pattie | July 24, 2006 at 07:02 PM
Beautiful garden! I love your close-up photo, it feels cools and fresh.
Posted by: Claude | July 25, 2006 at 12:03 AM
Chancey: Your explanation makes a lot of sense. But I'm thinking of the past few years I've been in the Maine Orchid Society (trying the easier route than book-learning to figure out how to grow them). At every meeting, men outnumbered women! The men tended to know the latin names of the plants, and showed slides of their many travels to central and south Americas, Thailand, Hawaii, etc. in search of wild orchids; while the women were more interested in staring at the orchids right there on the show-table, feeling their foliage, etc., and providing refreshments for everyone. It suggested to me that men appreciate floral beauty just as much as women, but in a different way, - that doesn't seem to include garden-tours.
Posted by: ml | July 25, 2006 at 04:52 AM
ML Yes I have heard that men can be orchid aficionados and also flowers like peonies and such. I was just being facetious in my remarks abut men and garden/ house tours. I was speaking from personal experience with Mr C.
Posted by: Chancy | July 25, 2006 at 01:23 PM
My husband and I just went on a pond tour here in Austin, and the men not only came out for it, they were also the volunteers who took tickets and they were the owners showing off the ponds and describing the various details of construction and planting. Just add water??
Posted by: Annie in Austin | July 25, 2006 at 07:36 PM
Oh, Mary Lee, your garden and grounds are simply breathtaking! That lawn looks like green velvet. What a great job you've done with all of this.
And thank you so much for allowing us to do the tour as well.
As to the lack of men....I agree with some of the others...maybe they saw work on the horizon or a sports game kept them glued to the TV.
And what a great cause this was for! Good for you.
Posted by: Terri | July 26, 2006 at 09:46 AM