This is a shot of part of one of the paths through what I call the back field. Anyone else would probably call it a yard. To the right are several kinds of no name roses, most of which were collected from roadsides and abandoned places about to be demolished. One of them is a monster climber going over an arbor, The same garden first blooms with hundreds of daffs and hyacinths. Then violets and irises. Right now the yucca is blooming. Soon to be followed by the many canna that are in there.
The perspective in the shot is a bit off. The highest roses might be about 8’ and the large fig just beyond that garden is 14 - 15’. To the left is a large forsythia grown from a branch stuck in the ground. It is the mama to an entire 60’ hedgerow. Beyond that is a willow, also grown from a stick rooted in water.
Just beneath the base of the willow, the tip of another garden juts into view. To the right of that is an arbored area shaded by the fig and vines of ivy. The path between those curves to the left until it passes the massive (though you can’t tell from the perspective) pine, then veers to the right where there are multiple flower beds and hidden seating for those who wish to disappear from civilization for awhile.
A different path is out of view on the right of the rose area, that is backed by a strawberry grove and tall tea olive hedges.
One thing that does show very will in this shot is that I am not a neat and tidy gardener who is into tightly sculpted rounded shrubbery. It also shows that I am never ahead of the weeds.
Alan, you made me have to think. It’s too early in the day for that. It’s a compromise between the two. It’s not an actual lawn. I’ve never sodded or plugged appropriate grass in here, but it gets mowed. The garden areas in there actually do get trimmed and weeded, but were intentionally made so that bulbs would come out in masses, changing the look from Feb through fall. and different things are meant to spill over one another and out of bounds.Paths are made so that they curve and have sharp turns into totally different environments that were hidden from view before the turn.
Sometimes, when there’s been enough rain and I have a fighting chance and enough time, I get all of the unwelcome clumps of bermuda grass ripped out from the edges. It’s a compromise between nature and me. We live between two busy roads in area where everyone else either has sparse woods and no landscaping, or very planned and sculpted yards. This is my escape haven where the wildness of nature shakes hands with a semblance of cultivation.
It was my original vegetable garden area, but the kids started planting things there and made the basis of the design when they were young to mid-teens. I’ve kept it up and continued working with it because of memories and the peaceful environment it’s grown to create as it matured.
Love the way you put it. Nature’s own chaos is beautiful. When we get a chance to imprint a little of ourselves on nature the results can be magical.
Thanks, Chikn. And thanks for getting me to look at it from that time of year again. We’ve been spending a lot of time in that shady area just to the right of center lately. Not to relax, but picking figs. You can’t tell from the pic, but that fig tree was about 15’ tall and more than that wide at the time. It was more than double the height of the roses on the arbor. Everything growing in that pic does well with major neglect, including the fig. Almost everything in the shot was either salvaged from waste or demolition, or a cutting from roadside growth, or grew in place as a volunteer. Even the arbor the rose tunnel grows on was once a shelving display the kids and I reclaimed from a store’s dumpster on one of our middle of the night dumpster diving forays I used to take them on. The bricks in the pathway that goes through there were collected from the grounds of a house that had been demolished, along with some of the daffodils.
It’s an area of memories for the “kids” and me. It makes me very happy when other people also find beauty in our not so common approach.
This is the best compliment i could give anyone…“What a wonderful cubic foot you have in your yard.”
“For A World in One Cubic Foot, esteemed nature photographer David Liittschwager took a bright green metal cube—measuring precisely one cubic foot—and set it in various ecosystems around the world.”
It’s a compromise between the two. It’s not an actual lawn. I’ve never sodded or plugged appropriate grass in here, but it gets mowed. The garden areas in there actually do get trimmed and weeded, but were intentionally made so that bulbs would come out in masses, changing the look from Feb through fall. and different things are meant to spill over one another and out of bounds.Paths are made so that they curve and have sharp turns into totally different environments that were hidden from view before the turn.