(Via Country Gardener)

Posted by admin to Uncategorized on 2007-10-13, 16:54:00

Our four-square garden, which takes a lot of effort
Kelvin Browne writes about gardening, architecture in homes section in one of the Toronto papers, the National Post. The following excerpt is from his column today entitled, Nice things take effort:

Regardless of how fancy the house or garden, owners today want them to be low maintenance. Like low taxes, it's assumed to be a right. Just as spoiled children want rewards without work (and, of course, the truly entitled get them), homeowners now require grandeur without lifting a finger.

The most obvious example is summed up by the stupidest phrase in the English language -- "low-maintenance garden." A garden is all about maintenance in varying degrees. It's about nurturing something to become what you envision it should be. There are gardens that require less nurturing than others, but the idea remains. You start somewhere and expect, with dedication or at least periodic attention, to arrive, a few years later, somewhere else. The garden needs you. You're complimented on your stewardship, not your ability to pay for hundreds of perennials. When someone says they like your garden, they like more than your choice of landscape designer; they admire how you worked with him or her to achieve something that matters beyond its ability to increase your home's property value.

The low-maintenance blight has examples indoors, too. Napkins, for instance. You don't expect young people in their first home or with young children to set the dinner table with linen napkins; it's admirable they'd even try to have you over. But after that, paper napkins are lazy. Hosts often let themselves off the hook by saying they're not formal types but you're nonetheless eating in a dining room, having multiple courses and subjected to the husband talking about how good, a.k.a. expensive, the wine is. It says either they're lazy or you're not important enough to bother with. Low maintenance rules.

We've always taken "effort" to heart in garden, but not so much in house. Time to take more care there now that we have renovated. You can read the rest of this excellent column here: Nice things take effort.

(Via Country Gardener)

Posted by admin to Uncategorized on 2007-10-13, 15:37:00

I haven't posted for awhile. The house renovations have been stealing all my extra energy. After six weeks, the novelty of cooking in the basement and sleeping in the study has worn off. On top of that, we have been doing the mowing and gardening on our own because the garden helpers evaporated with the coming of October.

On the precipation front, we had slightly more than an inch of rain over a couple of days in the first few days of October. The lawns have greened up, but when mowing I've come across many dead patches where the grass just didn't survive the weeks and months without rain.

Technically, I would say we are still in a drought. My husband planted 20 ninebark shrubs in one of our naturalized areas last weekend, and he found that the top few inches of soil were moist, but deeper than that the ground was still dry.

There might be some rain next week. My birthday is on Wednesday, the 17th, and the forecast for that day is for rain. If it materializes, it would be the perfect gift!

As for the renovation, the week looks like this: painters, cabinets and countertop finish Monday/Tuesday, electricians mid-week, then plumbers for the kitchen sink on Thursday, and the door knobs, bedroom closet shelves and bars toward the end of the week. The painters have been doing a wonderful job. The new kitchen cabinets are lovely, and two bedrooms have been renovated from floor to ceiling too (one of them was the old kitchen).

I really have nothing to complain about except my stress level. The renovation work has gone very smoothly, thanks to Carlo Barletta, an excellent contractor, and expert kitchen designers and cabinetmakers Woodvalley Kitchens, and interior designer Toby Yull, who helped me with the initial concept, plus paint colors and window coverings, and some hand-holding. (She understands that we can get rather crabby during the process.)

With the reno, our house might just come up to standard of the garden. We have always tended to do things backwards - garden first, then house.