Center Flower Garden

Wife of Pajama Farmer
Our house is at the top of a hill with a circle drive way on top. The middle of the circle is filled with grass, clover, other "noxious" weeds, and a big light pole. It’s actually pretty boring. In the winter we have to snow-blow our way through the middle to have a straight line to the garage. In the spring it is usually pretty mucky (like everything else in the thaw) and in the summer and fall it just is. The landlord has been seen driving through the grass so I know he isn’t worried about “ruining the lawn”, but I wanted to spice it up some how.

A flower garden, yep that’s the ticket! Of course I was about to dig up someone else’s sod and plant a garden around their light pole. I hope Steve (landlord) meant it when he said we could do what we wanted.

I picked the light pole to make the garden because I wanted to grow morning glories up it. That and I figured the pole would stop a snowplow from ruining it and those who drove across the grass, again... the light pole would help guard my garden. The hard part was digging up the sod. I swear the grass and roots were a foot deep and well packed.

I marked out a rough kidney shape and told Daryl that I wanted all the sod removed. He looked at me like I was crazy. Then he tried to convince me to make it smaller. Poor guy, he knew I wouldn’t be able to remove all the sod myself, though I did loosen about 1/3 of it. (Daryl came up with a great place to put the sod which was watered a lot and has grown in nicely in its new home.)

I had a plan for what I wanted, but sharing a vision that is in your head can be difficult. I tried to tell Daryl what I saw, but he wasn’t seeing it. But my wonderful husband just followed my directions knowing that even if he didn’t see it or understand it he would help me bring it about.

I wanted to make a “secret garden” in my garden; see, not so easy to explain. I wanted a faux garden gate with a rock path that leads to this “secret garden”. I wanted to make a short rock wall around the whole thing, with another wall/fence inside around my inner garden. I found an old piece of bark that I leaned up agaisnt the pole to help the plants climb. I could see it all in my head. This was what it looked like after we dug, put first row of rock around garden, made path and set up the gate.
Not very impressive and I think Steve thought I was crazy. I bought seeds and we started some flowers inside. I didn’t really have a plan for the types of flowers except poppies. I wanted a section of just poppies. Other than that I’d wing it. I got a 2 different wild flower mixtures, one annual and the other perennial. I mixed them together and sprinkled them on either side of my dirt path (it was still missing stones).

I planted my baby marigolds and 4 0’clocks that I had started inside. I bought a few plants so it wasn’t ALL dirt and then I waited. Darn seeds were taking too long! We added a lot of manure to the dirt and sand since it was pretty clayish when we started. I must have checked that garden every morning for a month before I finally saw something.Unfortunately for me, this spring did not start out very strong. We had cold and rain longer than normal and the growing season didn’t not get off to a good start. I only hope our growing season isn’t cut short in the fall too or us and everyone else will be hurting.
Finally the flowers did what flowers will do, they grew. I know my watching them and trying to coax them along didn’t make them grow faster, but it was nice to see some thing happening.

Then it happened, everything I had hoped, the poppies bloomed and they are glorious!! I LOVE them. The rocks in the path look great. I am still not done. I want to make the rock "wall" at least 2 layers high, and I want to plant a Harry Lauder's Walking Stick (a really neat shrub) in the middle of the grass section for my "secret garden". I'm still going to fence in that "secret garden" and I still have a few empty spots to fill, but I'm waiting for the perennial sales to start at a nursery near us. They have some unique plants I want to use. BUT as you can see my vision is starting to take shape & form and even Daryl and Steve can see what I see.