More makeovers

Before it was systematically ripped out by the furious lady Greenthumb, back in its day the lovely miss Ivy (Hedera helix) was loved in this garden for gracing the walls of an old house. No wonder, since it grows fast, puts up with any number of harsh conditions, quickly covers unsightly wire fences, adds warmth to blank walls and disguises architectural flaws, retaining its lush green colour all year round. Years later the garden was covered in thick ivy blankets, up to the point where miss Ivy had invaded every tree and had grown knee-deep on the ground in areas where virtually no other plants were alive. That's where my green thumb turned into a serial killer. After weeks and weeks of digging about, I rooted the enemy out, leaving only a few crippled troops which were to remain under close scrutiny of my pruning shears. Today they live in shady parts of the garden and make a lovely groundcover. Enough said.

Now to the sunnier part of the garden, which used to be neglected and overgrown with poison ivy, some invasive type of euonymus and other weeds , and even then had a special charm, but what do green thumbs do if not tame another block of garden.

BEFORE

AFTER




What to plant in the shady part of the garden?
I wondered what to do with the darkest part of my garden, under the dense foliage of an old magnolia tree. After strugling with grass, I decided to 'plant' a pond and surround it with sum bog plants, marginals and some lovely plants for shady area including Hostas, Calla lilies and Astilbe.

Pond No.1

GARDEN MAKEOVER

Before & after
Every garden benefits from some hard landscaping for both practical and aesthetic reasons. While my grandparents were alive and kickin', so was their estate; a typical country garden in the front, as well as the backyard fruit and vegetable garden, vineyard and a meadow full of wildflowers. It's great to have photographic records that capture the change, because you see your backyard everyday and it’s hard to remember what it used to look like a couple of years or decades ago. However I'll never forget what my garden looked like after the renovation of our future home. And what I have learned from that unpleasant experience is never, EVER, to lose sight of the builders in/outside your home. I know how hard people have worked in that garden, and it's not the hard part that bothers me that much, it's all the passion, love and joy they left in that very place, a piece of themselves. And I'm sure they felt as protective towards their plants as I do today. I guess a certain amount of ill-bred, ignorant people just can't come to terms with all that 'trivial bore'. After the barbaric horde of construction workers left the estate it looked more like a waste depot than somebody's yard. I'm not in any way trying to say this is profession-related, but what we have dealt with was an ignorant pig of a man and his gang. I have literally cried my eyes out over every single plant that didn't survive the raging of their Bobcat: a 40yr old Lebanese cedar, a glorious yucca tree, the whole of my front yard and many more. I guess we all learn from our mistakes... that's how the metamorphosis of my garden first begun...


BEFORE ( January 2004 )




Half a year later




3 YEARS LATER