Garden Dreams

My current herb garden consists of one lone rosemary plant.

In the absence of a real garden, it is being overly pampered while my itchy green thumbs wait most impatiently to get gardening.

 When we moved in at the end of November we weren't quite sure what we wanted to do in the backyard.  So, we did almost nothing.

At the last minute I dug up some grape hyacinth and black eyed Susan from the old house and planted them along the back wall of the new house.

 When we chose our lot we picked one with a protected wetlands in the back.  This was one way to have a bit more privacy on our tiny lot.  In the photo above our lot ends where the lawn stops.  It may not look all that small, but trust me, it is.

Teeny Tiny.

This angle might give you a better idea.

  The window you see is the next-door-neighbor's bedroom.  It's almost close enough to reach over and touch.  We did add 3 shrubs to afford some privacy.  They will grow up to 10' tall and 6-8' wide.

The shrubs are called Fragrant Tea Olive.  At certain times of the year they put out tiny clusters of white blossoms that give off a very pleasant scent.  It has been described as being similar to rose, gardenia or jasmine.  We had them on either end of the patio in our previous garden and loved the subtle waft of fragrance when sitting on the patio or going in and out of the house.

As much as I love to garden, I am not a garden designer.  We have a basic idea of what we want so we consulted with the landscape designers who created the waterfall/fish pond in the last garden.

While we wait to see what they come up with I am trying to be patient.  Our unusual amount of rainy, gray days this winter is making it a challenge.  Yet a trip to the local garden center helped matters.  It was fun to look at all of the seeds and dream of things to come.

 I'm planning to make many of the plants in this new garden do double duty in the form of edible landscaping.  I became intrigued by this idea after reading this post.

I'd really like to work in a fig too.  They do so well here although I know they do get big.  We'll see...

This book has been an inspiration too.

While waiting, I read and dream.

 This house has no built in bookcases.

However, since there are a lot of cupboards I've been satisfying my love for old and new garden books and the vintage garden pieces that survived the massive purging I did prior to moving in a new way.

Little happy spots behind cupboard doors.

My little secret ;).

A recent thrift shop find, this book offers great information for our garden plans.  At the suggestion of our chiropractor, we have been making green smoothies regularly.  That has meant buying lots and lots of greens.  I'm thrilled with the idea of growing them myself for a portion of the year.  It will be nice to save a little green while ingesting all of those greens.

🍃🍃🍃

On another note, belated thanks to all who offered kind words, support and even prayers for the dental ordeal in my previous post.  I'm pleased (and relieved) to report that all went well.  Glad to be done with that.