There are times, especially when my back is bad, that I long for a tiny property instead of the sprawling acres of Locust Hill. This usually occurs in the spring when the grass grows so fast I'm faced with either mowing it twice a week or having to rake and pick up the grass clippings. It also happens in the fall when grandchildren go back to school and I'm the one to pick up the useless apples from under the apple tree, put the raspberry bed to bed, mulch the asparagus, plant the bulbs I forgot I'd ordered, and try in vain to get the weed whacker to work. It even happens in the winter when I sometimes am the one to lug hay bales to the sheep and shovel a path up to the guest house.
Dreaming about how to design the perfect postage stamp yard is fun, but it's best done in winter when there's little else for the gardener to do. With a beautiful blizzard going on outside my window and nothing better to write about this week, I began creating a glorious back yard garden in my head, knowing perfectly well that when it comes right down to it I couldn't live without my view of Canaan Mountain, my raspberry and asparagus beds or my ragbag flock of sheep.
The first and most important thing I'd do if I lived on a small property would be to enclose the back yard with an eight-foot high wall. Maybe that's not very friendly, but privacy is very high on my list of priorities. Since this is strictly an imaginary project, my first choice of material for the wall would be native stone. Having paid someone to build a mere four-foot stone wall, I know how much it would cost, so I suspect I'd have to settle for brick or even plain weathered boards.
My wall, be it stone, brick or board, would enclose most of my rectangular yard, leaving just enough space outside the backdoor for the clothesline, the doghouse and the trash cans. Enclosed spaces can be very appealing, even to one who lives surrounded by acres of open meadow, so I think I could enjoy my little hideaway. Who doesn't love a secret garden?
Inside the four walls I would make a restful, picture-perfect garden, its center uncomplicated by anything more than an emerald lawn. It wouldn't be like the lawns on Locust Hill, full of thistles and bumps and brown spots, plantains and Jill-over-the-ground. This lawn would be thick and spongy and as weed-free as a putting green, just begging to be walked on in bare feet, and so perfect that I would cut it with a reel mower instead of a rotary that tears instead of cutting.
The lawn would be surrounded by a scalloped border of gardens. In the middle of the long west wall I would have a raised oval terrace of flagstones which would catch the early morning sun but no afternoon glare. It would be shaded by two fruit trees, a cherry big enough to support a swing seat and a graceful greengage plum. Although the flagstones would be laid in cement, their cracks would turn into velvet ribbons of green after I'd rubbed them with buttermilk and moss.
At the back of the terrace I would have an interestingly shaped pool (kidney-shaped sounds too intestinal), its edges overlapped with handsome, lichen-encrusted rocks interplanted with wildflowers and maidenhair ferns. Piped water would splash down over a huge craggy boulder into the pool, making cool gurgling sounds. The overflow would trickle out over the wildflowers and ferns to keep them continually green and happy.
The shorter wall to the south would contain vegetables and cutting flowers. I can live without fresh green beans or carrots or peppers, but who could manage without home-grown lettuce or tomatoes? And I'd certainly want the pleasure of planting a few annuals each spring - zinnias and snapdragons and baby's breath to make bouquets for the house.
On the east wall, facing the terrace would be the ultimate perennial flower bed. I haven't made up my mind about what I would plant in this garden. It might be a rainbow of colors or it might be a beautiful array of pure white blooms mixed with blue. It would surely have many plants with fragrant blossoms to fill the air with perfume.
What fun to start from scratch, picking and choosing new and different plants from the catalogs. I suspect I'll have to do a bit of reading before I come up with a good plan for this flower bed, so I'll save it for another column. In the meantime I need to find an appropriate photograph for today's column.
Since my secret garden is only in my imagination there is no way to produce its photograph so I spent last night perusing some of the garden books on my shelves. I have dozens and dozens of books on gardening, but most of them are strictly reference books with very few pictures. I'd almost given up finding something appropriate, but then I remembered a book I have called Victorian Flower Gardens by Andrew Clayton-Payne.
This book has pages and pages of the most delicious illustrations.
English cottage gardens are so appealing. A thatch-roofed cottage is probably half of why the garden I chose is so delightful. I might just incorporate a little thatch-roofed garden shed in my imaginary backyard.
Winter is still very much with us so have some fun and dream up your own perfect secret garden while you're waiting for spring.
