My garden - my joy! Constantly changing and evolving. But what did it look like in the very beginning? This entry has been greatly inspired by the lovely blog "Roser og Patina" and her fascinating story about how her beautiful garden came to be.
The spring of 2000, our first spring here, and my garden was just a dream. Reality being quite a different story (sorry about the poor quality of the photos... pre-digital ones). We had just finished building our little house, and there truly was no garden to speak of. Just a lot of possibilities.
By the spring of 2002 the potager had started to take shape, even though everything was still looking very bare. But I had got my six long coveted raised beds and stone pathways. And after a bit also the white picket fence, that now surrounds and protects the potager (our plot is a windy one).
Later... much later... we expanded with more raised beds for a cutting garden, in a different part of our plot. And a couple of years ago they were even further expanded to a total of 10 raised beds.
My garden is a flat space, that I slowly (but surely) try to section off to different garden rooms. Every year we plant more trees and bushes, in an effort to create hight, and to protect the garden from the winds (I do wish we had done so right at the start).
We have also planted hedges, but all these take ages to grow to any size to speak of in our tough climate. And after every cold winter we lose some. Mainly roses, but after last winter also all the honeysuckles that climb along the wire arches. Mice play havoc under the snow, damaging fruit trees, roses and hedges.
But my pride and joy remains the potager. This is where I grow most of our vegetables, and this is where many of my favourite perennials can be found, surrounding the white picket fence.
Even before our little house was built, I had already drawn plans for the potager, along with the "alley-beds" that lead to it. We have yet to lay the stones along that very path (hopefully this spring/summer). The white picket fence also needs a new lick of paint this coming spring (on hindsight white may not be the most practical colour for garden fence).
But then again I never was practically inclined. And as for the fence, I would not have it any other way. On hindsight there are a number of things I could have done differently. But the wonderful thing about a garden that it is never finished. It is constantly changing, there is always room for improvement. Which makes gardening such a fascinating activity.
