I decided to do some heavier duty gardening this spring/summer in my parents backyard. It's a backyard of history:
*My grandfather had a little vineyard set up to make his own wine from the grapes. To this day I still find the intricate roots of the grape vine.
*My brothers & I played safely there in the summers (they with their GI Joe's and me with my Barbie's)
*It provided my first patch of dirt there where I experimented with growing vegetables and flowers at the young age of 9: successful were cosmos and string beans - not so successful were pumpkins.
*We had countless parties there and to this day I have my annual BBQ which has become a staple of summer for many of my friends.
*There are 2 rosebushes + a lilac tree that are older than I am!
So with all that history, I decided to make some more history this year by creating a successful perennial garden & homegrown veggies. I started last weekend and will be working in patches (to make it less intimidating!):
The trunk to the right is the lilac tree. Gardening under a tree is a bit difficult, but I got some ferns which hopefully will fill out nicely (white feather hostas and luna moth hostas). There's also some Pampas ornamental grass right in front of that trellis (which will eventually be filled with ivy). They did well last year, I expect them to do well again this year and probably be bigger (they got up to about 2 feet last summer). And that little spec of green all the way to the left is a Black Eyed Susan, one of my favorite garden flowers since they are so hardy and colorful for months.
The next phase includes:
*Asparagus Fern
*Japanese Forest Grass
*Hardy Geranium Bush
*Japanese Blood Grass
*Jasmine Night Blooming Bush
And after that will be my vegetable garden attempt:
*Summer Squash
*Parsley
*Carrots
*Lettuce
*Arugula
Fingers crossed!
