I know, summer doesn't
officially start until June 21st, but it's been in the 90s for half of May already. It may not be summer yet, technically, but it's already feeling like it.
Today, though, it's cool and overcast, as gigantic storms race past, mostly to the north of where I live. It's been a rainy spring so far (thank you, El Nino!), and for once, Texas has been officially declared out of the drought that's been beating down on us for the past several years. Who knows how long it'll last; but for now, it's a beautiful, grey, restful day.
I took a walk this morning, which is something I haven't done for nearly a year. I used to walk every evening, but last Summer, when the crushing heat and my asthma got the better of me, I joined a gym, and traded my daily walk for a workout in the air conditioning each day after work. That lasted from about June to November, when I lost my job and was no longer driving by the gym every day at 6:00. I've been active since then, but nowhere near the level I was before.
So I took a walk this morning. And more than the exercise, it reminded me how much I love walking around my neighborhood. It's not an affluent neighborhood, but it's well kept, simple, and pretty. I love getting to see everyone's landscaping and exterior decor - and it was nice to see how much my old favorites have grown and changed in the last year. I had almost forgotten about "The Garden House", a block behind where I live, which is is beautifully landscaped, so pretty and nearly-wild-looking, that I want to roll in the beds every time I walk by. It was that house which made me decide to get a Chaste Tree for my backyard.
Every time I walk - today, and I remember doing it every time I walked last year - I feel so refreshed and inspired by everyone else's landscapes...and then I get home, look at my front yard, and go, "...Oh." My front garden is looking better and better, with all the work I've been putting into it this year, and my Bluebonnet patch looks really lovely while it's in bloom (it's already done for the year), but the rest of the yard is pretty...well...not "bad", but not all that great, either. It slopes steeply to the street from the house, and the fact that it barely retains water at all means that my grass has never done well. In fact, the front yard is mostly made up of buzz-cut weeds and a patchy carpet of tiny, sprawling weeds that look like itty bitty ferns and are covered with tiny pink starburst-flowers growing from long runners covered with hidden thorns. Not that I mind - you know how I love a wild mishmash of Whatever Grows Here in place of a boring monoculture lawn; I just wish it was healthier.
Last year I built a small ring of those concrete cobblestones I pulled out of what used to be the back patio around the small Live Oak tree in the front yard, and backfilled it with compost and mulch, to help retain water for the tree - and it's done REALLY well. The canopy has nearly doubled in size since I pruned it back in January! Similar water-retention efforts in the backyard in the areas where the yard slopes the most have worked out really well in the past, too. So I think I've decided to create a water-retention garden at the front of my front lawn.
Here's what the yard looks like now:
The slope from the house to the sidewalk is only about a 10• drop, but it's enough that the whole "front half" of the yard (from the tree to the sidewalk) is pretty dry, even in the wettest weather. In heavy rains, the soil and all the grass and weeds growing in that front half washes almost completely away. So I think I'll do this:
That looks like an enormous difference. It's not, really (and no the drawings aren't exactly to scale, but they're close enough for me to get an idea of how things look). It's a 16" border at the end of the lawn, on both sides of the driveway, which I'm hoping to plant with Columbines, more purple Irises (to echo the flower and color scheme in the front garden bed), and whatever small greenery happens my way as I'm developing and implementing this plan. I'm also planning to fill the traffic strip, between the sidewalk and street, with similar plantings, to create a pretty little walkway between flowers (HOA be damned. They don't like it when we plant our traffic strips, but since that area is technically city property, they can't stop us, either. The only thing the city says about it is "be ready to have it dug up without notice if we ever need to", and I'm fine with that).
The plan also calls for more cobblestone pathways to be laid near the driveway to provide more walking space, since I have a roommate now, and therefore two cars in the driveway. For the first time in eleven years, I'll actually need to buy more cement and make NEW stones! I've actually finally used up all the stones from the old patio (in various garden borders, tree circles, and some low areas in the backyard where, for right now, they're helping keep the soil and grass in place as the grass finishes growing into the spots where Raven used to dig).
It'll be awhile before I can get to work implementing this. I'm still unemployed (six months, you guys!!), but I'm hopeful that that situation is going to be ended soon. Sometime in the next couple of weeks I need to make a few runs to the dump to stock up on mulch; and my compost bin is nearly ready to be emptied out - I have roughly 9 cubic feet of compost just about ready to go (YAY!!), which is more than enough to cover the lawn-side beds on both sides of the driveway - maybe not the traffic strip, but, we'll see how it all goes.
Anyway. As soon as I can get more cement for the stones, and make a nursery run, I'll get started on this. I'll let you know how it goes. :)
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