CMS Homework - Garden Journal

 

Welcome to the beginning of my garden project. June 2019 I hired a firm to come dig me a triangular garden and fill it with black earth. This is in my front yard. That bare spot in the foreground is where Chance, the dog, digs up the earth to lie in its coolness. The entire area is shaded by a maple tree planted the same year I was born, and to whose existence I thought I owed the complete lack of garden in the front yard!

Turns out, I was wrong. Sunlight hits the property line between me and my neighbour Anne by noon. So, tired of having so much lawn to cut, I decided to cut the lawn in half and plant things that I enjoy looking at.

I love the flower called Cosmos. When we lost our home in Brossard and came back here to live, I never thought I'd be able to have Cosmos again. But here is the tiny crop I planted last summer. I also planted Lily-of-the-Valley, one red Day Lily plant,  several Hostas, some ornamental grasses, and a Rhododendron.

This summer I added Pansies, Poppies, and some Solomon's Seal. The cat likes to sit and chew the budding ornamental grasses.

A closeup of one of the poppies.

I sit in that blue chair and watch the garden grow, some days for hours! I keep thinking how lovely it is that I had the money to do this project, the time to put into it, but most of all have the time to sit and enjoy it! The Cosmos have grown quite high this year...

Seen grinning behind the Cosmos is my husband Sean. In memory of my father I must now tell you that Sean is the Flower of Manhood - the Blooming Idjit. Dad joke, sorry!

One of the things that makes this garden special to me is that it is on land that was just used as a lawn before. My grandparents were the original owners of this house, and there were all kinds of foundation "gardens" around, and a bit of one in the back.

But my grandmother had no idea how large the trees would get! The big maple is the front, which effectively cuts off sunlight and rainwater to everything under its branches, is a mere six feet from the foundation of the house. So, so much for the front foundation plantings!

          Rant 

And about foundation plantings...I thoroughly disapprove! This house, and indeed every house in Greenfield Park, is built on clay, on what is called a floating foundation. Basically there's a big slab o' concrete under the house foundation that literally floats on clay. When the clay is damp and moist, everything's fine. But when the clay dries out, the support for that foundation fails under one corner or another, the floating foundation cracks, and the house foundation walls crack. Next time it rains, water comes in the basement.

Water has been coming in our basement for fifty years. About 25 years ago the government set up a program where, if you could afford to have an engineering firm raise your house and drill down to bedrock, they'd reimburse you 30% of the cost. Pfft! As if!

Anyway, watering gardens right next to the foundation of a house is not a good idea! Now, one can SEEM to have foundation plantings, if you only dig them about 1.5 feet out from the house! As the plants grow, no one will be able to tell they're not right up against the foundation! And you won't have to water the foundation of your home!

Back to why I love this garden.

I live on a very quiet street. Some days a total of ten cars will go by. Especially this summer, with Covid! I can sit in the shade of my overlarge maple tree and watch the blooms and leaves breathe with the breezes. The cats come and visit me. The neighbours think I'm nuts, which suits me!

All the foundation plantings around the house have been systematically killed by drought and neglect. But this one is mine. It has plants I like in it - once I got Sean to stop buying me stuff I don't want!

Sitting and watching it grow, breathing with it, listening to the birds and squirrels,  I feel at peace.