Home Garden Pond

 

Unfortunately the above just about describes my garden, after my two year absence from it, or at least that’s how my husband charitably described it, This blog will detail my endeavors to hopefully restore my garden to its former glory

Gone is my favorite Clematis ‘Pink Champagne, usually flowering in abundance by this late in May.

Absent also are my Oriental poppies, who are normally in bud almost ready to flower by this time.

Uncertain yet about the fate of my water lily, it may still be a little early for it to be showing signs of life. Gone too, is my delight, in my own garden, all privacy and sense of solitude, of peaceful quiet retreat, the atmosphere of uninterrupted bliss, all gone, stolen by a new sub division, that has during the past two summers that I have been kept house bound by a back problem, entwined itself onto three sides of my garden, robbing it of most of its pleasure for me, but not one to lie down in defeat.

Not one to be so easily beaten ,I have a plan.(more later on the plan) we have lived on Moffatt St ,in St Catharines Ont ,now for 14 years this August. Previous to the sub division we had neighbors on only one side, our covered ,enclosed deck has always provided privacy between us and our neighbors , the other 3 sides one being the street ,at the front we have no across the road neighbors besides the first ,of the three Old Welland Canals which are historical landmarks of this area

On the remaining two sides there used to be open land……well such is progress I suppose. But they have built the new homes so close to us that their gardens cannot be more than 15ft x20ft obviously no gardeners reside in these homes, the developers had promised a privacy fence but none ever appeared, all they did was clear away the wild grape vine and other volunteer greenery that for years caused me “gardeners grief ” reaching through our chain link fence and entangling itself among my shrubs and strangling the young plum trees, But at least it filled in the bare spots along the fence. So happy would I be right now, to have it back. I now have several 6ft naked gaps along my back fence. Unused to the close proximity of other houses where there was once privacy, now ,when ever I go into my garden I feel observed from every angle, a bit like a prisoner must feel being watched by the guards from along the jail walls.

This feeling is that strong I feel I must put on decent, good clothes to go out to weed and prune , how stupid is that? For fear of what my new neighbors will think of me, not helping this feeling of being scrutinized by invisible eyes ,from behind the new sheers and blinds AND found wanting. Is that after almost two years of just sitting on my bum indoors, as it hurt way to much to do much else ,I have about 80lbs to lose, well 70lbs now I started a diet 2 weeks ago I have already lost 10lbs. and at only 5ft 4in that is an awful lot of extra weight to carry.

When out in the garden I feel that I am their only source of entertainment ,after all what else have they got to look at, with their hanky sized patches of plain green grass ,at least there are still some plants left alive in my yard to give it interest and color. I feel they’re thinking oh look its a little, fat, English woman, with weird white patches (I have Vitiligo) that’s supposed to do the garden there. She’s not been doing a very good job has she; the garden is all over grown or dead. Well what do they know; and how do they know I’m English? None of them have ever spoken to me. All kidding aside I feel most of the seclusion and privacy we felt when we were in our back yard is mostly gone now. Its not just me that feels this way ,my husband and our two teenage daughters and even our pet dog Chester feels it too.

He rushes out of the house to chase away some cheeky rabbit ,that he has spied from the window,who has been bold enough to enter his domain, only to stop short, surprised by someone on the other side of the fence that he doesn’t expect to see there .He comes rushing back to the house confused and a little afraid. He’s quite an old timer almost 98 in dog years, quite gray in some places, going a little blind and more than a little deaf, with his senses going, things appear to take him by surprise a lot these days.

But recently he at least ,appears to be getting a little more accustomed to our new neighbors ,as now I have noticed when he goes out into the garden on some doggy mission, now when he encounters one of the new neighbors through the fence ,he stands his ground ,hackles raised and barks, he has a very loud annoying bark for such a small dog ,he’s a Jack Russell / Dachshund cross. I am afraid to own that I have found myself perhaps letting him continue to bark just that little longer than maybe I should, but just like Chester I resent their presence too.

We all want our private garden space back , the feature we all miss the most is being able to sit on our pond patio, beneath the shade of an old maple tree relaxing at the end of a long day ,letting all the stress just drift away ,with a cold beer or a glass of cool wine ,watching the goldfish get on with their fishy business , or squabble for the dry cat food that we discovered they love ,that we cast in now and then just to watch them compete for it, in the 36ft long pond we dug the second summer after we moved in.

All spoiled now, because adjacent to, within less than 5ft of our once shady pond patio sits the one and only seemingly ever open dinning room widow ,on the long blank wall of the newly built semi next door. Placed anywhere else along that wall, the window would not of interfered with our enjoyment of the pond quite so much as it does where it is, but we can no longer gather there at the end of the day without feeling that we are so close to our neighbors that we may as well pull up a chair and join them at their dinning table for supper. We can hear clearly all of their mealtime conversations, and I am sure if we could understand what they were saying (they speak in a foreign language) my youngest daughter for one (never shy) would have chimed in before long with some smart remark ,so probably just as well they don’t speak English. Hopefully they don’t understand it much either, or at least not as it is spoken by my very northern sounding Manchunian mum in law who visits every year. The first summer after the semi’s were built my mum in law ,also a great fan of our pond patio, where for years on her annual visits ,after spending pleasant morning hours sunning herself on the main lawn sort respite from the heat of the noon time sun in the shade of the tree by the pond ,for a peaceful read or nap by the lulling sounds of the trickling waterfall. Found her tranquility rudely shattered by a strident loud unintelligible female voice shrieking close by ,some command at her husband ,through that ever open window, mum in law herself startled with surprise leapt from the lounger where she had been dozing ,crying “Good Lord , you’ll have to do something about them,! ruins the whole garden , you could at least put a piece of trellis across there, I would ” pointing at the window. She then went on in none too quiet tones to describe several solutions for blocking the view from the neighbors window into our garden.

THE PLAN

My back garden is more or less L shaped, my raised ranch style white brick bungalow sits roughly in the middle but to the very right of a double lot spanning approximately 150ft wide x 100 ft deep. Below is a very poorly sketched not to scale or proportion (although I did try) diagram of my garden layout.

I think actually the house sits a little closer to the road than I have made it appear, as the round circular sunken lawn (which really is a circular weed patch, where our above ground 24 ft diameter pool used to reside up to about four years ago) as there is space for a 3 foot wide path between the old pool site and the flower beds at the back of the house.

Not wanting to fork out the two grand they quoted for topsoil that would bring up my problem circle the necessary 18 in to bring it to the same level as the rest of the lawn, I decided to enclose it with a small wall and have a sunken garden .Finished the wall didn’t get as far as the lawn as it was then that I developed my back problem and all life came to a grinding halt. Had surgery about two months ago 95% of the pain is gone and I am hoping with physio and weight loss the rest will go too. But at least the main thing right now is that I can get back to an almost normal life.

Anyway back to my plan, originally we toyed with the idea of taking down the chain link fence and substituting it with a 6ft tall wooden one, too expensive , hubby only just gone back to work after a three and a half month lay off we have used up all our savings. Apart from which to put in new fence would mean having to dig up every established tree and plant from the flower beds that almost completely surround my garden, and I wouldn’t be happy with just a fence, I’d want to hide that “ugly “fence with shrubs and plants. So may as well just use hedging plants to cover the bare spots on the chain link. To purchase plants that are already big enough to provide a substantial privacy screen are very expensive, in addition would require the excavation of a considerable sized planting holes, not possible, the creation of such large holes between already well established shrubs would be next to near impossible ,above ground there may be empty places along the fence, but below ground the roots have spread sideways rather than down as beneath its meager 12in coating of topsoil (less in some places) my garden is solid clay ,we discovered this fact when we started to dig out our first pond years ago, finding little topsoil and so much clay also revealed why the previous home owner had made all his flower beds raised ones.

So what to do? Finally I decided that I would just have to increase the width of my planting beds and where it wasn’t possible to plant a new shrub or tree along the fence between two already established plants , it would be possible if I planted the new additions in front of the older ones but still plugging the gap, I would lose lawn, but I would gladly trade it for reinstating our privacy any day of the week.

Ok this takes care of the longer back fence but will not do for the left hand side of the garden, apart from a couple of

tree trunks and a little trumpet vine at each end there’s a 50ft long completely naked fence, the source of our privacy previously along this length, used to grow unfortunately, on the other side of the fence. I of course can plant a hedge along this length that in time will take care of the problem , seeing as ,apart from not wanting to look at the solid brick side wall of the house next door, I don’t mind waiting for some fast growing shrub to take care of the issue, however I want the “ever open window” controversy solving rapidly, It was about now that we realized screening out the “ever open window” with a shrub or even a 6ft high wooden fence for that matter ,our pond and patio would still simply remain in too close to that window for any true feeling of personal space. There was no other answer except moving the pond, a dauntingly mammoth task at any time but just after back surgery a slightly foolish thought to say the least, but enough said, that “is” the plan, increase the depth of all borders , plant a hedge, dig a new hole for the pond, fill in old pond site, relocate all plants from old pond to new pond, grow or purchase new plants to replace lost ones.

I have kept a garden for many years but would not place myself in the expert category by any means, I am constantly researching this plant and that shrub somewhere on the net . With no gardening buddies from whom to seek advice or suggestion, I am ardently hoping that through the creation of this blog I will not only acquire knowledge but some new on line friends too.