A New To Me Old Garden

My neighbor says that early in the 30-year life of this group of houses, six “little old ladies” lived here, one to each house. I wonder if one of them made this garden.

A deck – just six-feet wide – runs outside my workspace. An equally narrow strip full of perennials, between the deck and the fence, reminds me of a thicket, a hedgerow, or a stuffed bed in a real garden. This spring I’ve watched blooms come and go – rose madder rhodendron, pink-tinged white crabapple, white lilac – and now spirea turns hot pink, and a hydrangea becomes that purply French-blue.

Underneath, hostas of different leaf and flower size, ferns, white astilbe, and yellow loosestrife smother traces of a little gravel path. A five-foot rickety fence supports a Sleeping Beauty tangle of climbing roses, hydrangea, and honeysuckle. Up against the permanently propped-open gate, foxgloves make themselves at home beside a couple of struggling-in-shade peonies.

In a couple of feet along the east side of the house, two maple trees, tall ferns, hostas, a lavender hydrangea, and several lively pink azaleas crowd over a lumpy trail. In the neighbor’s adjoining garden strip, three tall arborvitae strategically block windows. I love to walk this skinny path – ferns crowd my knees, water captured in the hosta’s pleats tips onto my feet, and it’s cool on a hot day.

In front of the house, the remodel turned a covered porch into an enclosed entryway. But, against the house, two large rose bushes remain, one pink and one yellow. In a small and sloping grass patch stands a beautiful dogwood tree that blossomed white for weeks, and now begins to set red, strawberry-shaped seedpods. A chunk of the grass patch made way for a new walkway of stepping stones climbing to the front porch.

I divided four-inch pots of wooly thyme into smaller bits to grow along the stepping stones, and culinary thyme plants march up beside them. For this summer, in the bigger space where the grass is gone, I planted a delicata squash and a sugar pie pumpkin. Visitors smile and say, you’ll have runners everywhere! And with luck some squash and pumpkins.

The eight-foot wide sunny space between driveway and house, where kitchen and new entry make an L, became a small patio with a trellis. I hope sweet peas in summer and an evergreen clematis and jasmine all year will buffer the car from view. A sun-faded yellow umbrella, some pots from the bluff, and a small table cheer the recycled pavers.

It’s small and very peaceful here for now, but development threatens the lot to the north. The old house, green shed, and fine stand of Doug Firs there will disappear soon. The new buildings won’t shade us, but they will loom, and, because of density desires for this part of the island, be very close to us.

One morning last week I heard a racket, and from the upstairs window saw three guys at work wielding weed whacker, Bobcat, and chain saw.

Just an opening salvo making me realize I had better enjoy every day now – but isn’t that always the rule?