I have come to realize that much of my gardening over the past dozen years has been problem solving. When Jane asked several years ago "why do gardeners garden? Why do you garden?" I answered that I found it rewarding to fix issues and fit things together using plants and rocks like jigsaw pieces.
By that I meant mostly hiding things with plants. Hide the a/c units, disguise the open expanse of our builder's lot, screen us from the road, hide the foundation waterproofing, create shade where it's needed, add height, dress a blank wall. All of that involved plant selections, and some design creativity to make things work together.
When we moved to Santa Fe I loved having already established hardscape and plants, many quite mature. But I still approached creating new gardens as problems to be solved. Screen the big dining room windows from street views, cover metal edging with creeping thyme, plant a tree to hide the neighbor's utility boxes, find a way to shade the patio. It was the same approach I'd taken in Connecticut, but on a smaller scale here, with already established elements to work around and several things to hide.
Designing a Garden
After I spent some time in other gardens in the neighborhood, I realized I'd like to create a different feeling in my own back yard. It would be nice to have a complete look, not separate elements I fixed to fit together because they were already there. I want flow in the back yard. I want a feeling of cohesion. I want the eye drawn somewhere.
- I don't want to fix the Spanish broom's looming presence, I want to remove it.
- I don't want to hide the metal edging or bridge the transition to red volcanic rock with gravel and groundcovers, I want to eliminate them.
- I don't want to work around the issues of too-big shrubs and much too deep gray gravel everywhere, I want to level things and start over.
And with all that, I want a commitment to having a nicely designed plant space, fully irrigated. I've solved the problem of going away for a week by self-installing my Shrubbler system that keeps things from dying, but I don't want to just solve that issue. I want a truly maintained garden.
This time I don't want to work with what I've got. I want to design something, not fix something.
So . . . $15,000 to professionally fix the back yard, remove a mature plant, expand garden spaces and install real irrigation.
And an ongoing design process to create the garden around the birdbath, with moss rocks encircling, plants around it, a bench, a pot tucked under a shrub. Something cohesive and fully designed.
September 2021