Before and After

Last week Facebook kindly reminded me of pictures I posted that date nine years earlier. They were pics of my garden.

COLLAGE — Various angles of my front yard–click on any for larger image

So I went out that day–fortunately a nice day for taking pictures, unlike every day since–and tried to capture the same angles. I’m not the greatest photographer in the world, and with 9 years of growth I couldn’t even get into all the same spots, but here’s what things look like now.

There’s a lot I love about my front yard, especially the pond. (Two surviving goldfish are now 5″ long . ♥.) But one of the best aspects of the old garden is that mass of Rudbeckia (Black-eyed Susan). I haven’t been able to foster such a lovely patch since, and I’m not sure why. Still trying.

Why am I not growing dahlias anymore? Surely they’re among the best sources of colour in the late summer-autumn garden.

House next door was torn down and rebuilt. New fence gives a lot more sun to the garden under the cedar trees.

Of course one expects trees and shrubs to put on a foot or so per year in vertical growth, so here’s the little Cryptomeria japonica ‘Cristata’:

Cryptomeria japonica ‘Cristata’. 30″ when I planted it and now about 14′

The previous pics all seem to show a fairly open yard, both old and current, lots of empty spaces, aka “negative spaces”. One of the reasons a lawn can be a good thing is to provide that restful space that creates a foil for the busier, more colourful areas.

Below you’ll see however that the garden is anything but “empty”. In fact it’s far too busy, and I’m planning to remove the red rose (right side pic) and a lot of that croscosmia (light green grassy clump). As I’ve said before, the larger the plant–perennial, shrub or tree–the more value it has to provide. And that red rose (‘William Shakespeare 2000′–a David Austin rose) just doesn’t provide enough value. It sprawls, it’s subject to black spot, the flowers, while stunning on dry days, turns to mush in the rain. I’ll miss the fragrance tho’!

Couldn’t get the same viewpoint because the rose (circled) and the smoke bush were too high to see over.

So this fall I’ll be doing a renovation in the back yard, but come next spring it’ll be time to make some changes here. Seeing these old pics really makes me want to get back to some of the look of the old garden–the rudbeckia, the dahlias, more open space, fewer shrubs (can hardly believe that’s me saying “fewer shrubs”!)

I’ll keep you posted…