Tangled Brush


We rented a house with an overgrown garden. I want to make it beautiful, but there are constraints. The main one is, of course, time. I have two small and tumbling kids and, for some reason, they don't find pulling up weeds as fascinating as I do. 

"Mama!"

"Yes?"

"Come play with me! / I want to go biking! / Play a board game!" (etc).

"Um, can I dig up a few more dandelions? Just five more, okay? Um, maybe ten?"

So, you see. 

Another constraint: we plan to buy a house in the next 3-12 months. Should I put significant time and effort into a garden when we may not be here next year to enjoy it? Or, to make it more concrete - that $50 rose tree covered in profuse, fragrant blooms is so beautiful. But if we buy a house in January, will I be able to dig it up and take it with us? (I live in Ottawa, Canada, so the answer is no). 

And so, I dig, and weed, and dream, and buy annuals, not perennials. 

Okay, I bought a few perennials, and some perennial seeds, but only a few. Maybe we'll be here next year.

On to the pictures: 

My husband was tasked with mowing the lawn one fine day. This wild patch (where we dumped leaves last autumn) was totally out of control; full of broadleaf grasses, vetch and bladder campion. We laughingly called it the meadow. A mess! I drove off to do some chores.

When I hit the main road, I was smitten with misgivings. I had a meadow! A beautiful, wild meadow! It had wildflowers! I could plant poppies! With trembling fingers I called my husband. For a wonder, he answered:

"Don't mow the meadow! I love it. I want it to be wild".

'Okay."

Thank goodness for cell phones. I love you, honey! Smooch. 

This is my meadow in mid-June. 




This is the front of the house in mid-May. We moved in last July 1, so we missed all of the spring flowers. This year, it has been such a delight watching the soil - things poking, unfurling, bouncing into leaf, and blooming.




I have some acquaintance with gardens, so I could recognize some of the tips and curled up leaves. To my delight, there was lily of the valley, one of my favourites. Last autumn I planted tulips and daffodils together, to deter the squirrels (they like tulips but not daffodils). I was digging up the snow to plant the bulbs (in my defence, winter came early!).

There are still 5 boxes of tulips I didn't get to plant, as well as some hyacinths (my other favourite spring flower). Sob. Somehow that escaped my mind when I was in the garden centre this spring, excitedly buying seeds. I bought dozens of packets. Do you know how long it takes to prepare the ground and plant seeds? Forever!  First lesson of gardening, that I am learning the hard way: don't be overambitious. 

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