I’ve bought a house. A small bungalow built in 1926 that is the perfect size for me, my husband, and our future English Bulldog, Rondo (who does not yet exist, but is to be named after the point guard of the Celtics). And now that I am an official homeowner, I no longer have any reason not to garden. Especially considering the yard I’ve inherited.

One or both of the prior owners clearly enjoyed a little digging in soil. The front yard is a great mix of a tiny patch of grass, a few tufts of native ornamental grasses, several colorful perennials (roses, bleeding hearts, dahlias, and stuff I don’t know the name of), succulents, and herbs. I think I’m going to maintain much of what is already there, through I’d like to pull up a few of the grasses to make room for more succulents and I’d like to replace one side of the grass with a raised bed.

The backyard is where I plan to change the most. Though it is beautiful, I think it’s a little overplanted. I’d like to remove several things to make room for a new raised bed. I’m also planning on taking out the water feature—I am never relaxed or peaceful enough to appreciate a calming flow of water. And, I think the rain in Portland is more than enough. There is already a wonderful area full of peppers, tomatoes, beans, corn, and more veggies that I am going to leave alone (and hopefully not kill). We also have a cold box that is currently occupied by weeds. I don’t know what we’ll put in it yet, but I was thinking lettuces or maybe a few herbs.

I’m going to do my best to document the trials of my first garden. I promise to share the good and the bad and everything that happens in between. Lucky for me, I have access to the full Timber Press library to gather information from along the way…

P.S. These pictures were obviously not taken this month. If they were taken this month they would much more barren, much less green, and — thanks to a little Holiday weekend yard work — much more cut back.

It does my heart good to know that I can spend the day at a place like Longwood Gardens, talk about the detailed history of two species of waterlilies (well, “Victorias” more properly, of the genus Victoria) and get paid for it. I was visiting Tomasz Anisko, author of When Perennials Bloom and Longwood’s curator. Tomasz was kind enough to show me behind the scenes and tell me about plans for an upcoming book on Victoria, a genus of two plants that was all the rage — and the source of controversy and scandal — in the 19th century after it was discovered on the Amazon and named after the British queen. (French plant explorers who felt they found the plants first were none too happy with the British name — perhaps it should be the genus Napoleon?)

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One of the books that I am most looking forward to this year is The New Low-Maintenance Garden. I love working in my garden, but I also love cooking, movies, teasing the cats, knitting, bike rides, dancing… and on and on. So the idea of a low-maintenance garden is a “have your garden and eat it too” best case scenario to me. Plus the book is gorgeous! Here’s an excerpt from Val’s introduction, where she explains how she came around to the low-maintenance garden ideal.

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One area of ornamental gardening that often stumps me is the question of placement. Yes, I know – most plants that I buy will have a handy tag telling me where to put it. But sometimes it is still baffling! Take, for instance, my three heucheras, which live under the clematis vine.

The middle one is hard to see – which is exactly my point. Its tag said it liked partial shade (check) and moderate water (check). That’s exactly what it gets here, and yet my other two heucheras are doing quite well, while the middle child struggles. It looks healthy enough – it is just small. Perhaps it is overcome by the lovely foliage to its left.

I am told that digging up and moving perennials is a lot less fraught than digging up and moving vegetables, so maybe I’ll just move it. But where? Ah, now we are back to my original problem – placement.

Incidentally, my clematis vine is gorgeous. Here it was in the spring:

I can’t take any credit for placement, though. It was there when I moved in.

Yesterday when my husband and I got to our son’s elementary school to pick him up, we found him sitting on the playground cradling a tiny plant in a big nursery tub. He was thrilled to inform us that it was a lupin given to him by Julia, the school’s AmeriCorp volunteer and keeper of the school garden.

Apparently the students that helped in the garden were allowed to dig up one each to take home. He really could not wait to get it planted in our back yard for two reasons: 1) Julia told him that he should be careful where he plants it because it will grow “as big as our car” (fortunately we have a small hatchback) and 2) Remus Lupin, of course! The werewolf from Harry Potter! What could be more exciting to a 10 year old boy than the idea of growing a werewolf plant the size of a four door import?

Because parents are killjoys we pointed out that there’s hardly room in our yard for something that big, but Harold shot back with the suggestion that we tear down the garden shed and plant it in that spot. It is a good suggestion since Portland’s record snowfall last winter nearly caved in the roof. It’s supposed to be nice this weekend, I think we’ll be in the yard finding a nice spot where the lupin can get some sunshine, and unobstructed views of a full moon.

I have a lovely viburnum in my backyard.

I know that it is a viburnum because we published a book about them, and it looks an awful lot like the viburnums in the book. Before the publication of the book? My viburnum was just “that big reddish, greenish, shrub thing in the backyard.” Now it has a name, and I can look intelligent when guests ask me what it is.

My viburnum is right next to my vegetable beds.

As it got taller, it started to shade out the vegetables. That would never do. I referred our book on viburnums, and was told that viburnums are “forgiving” of pruning.

Thank goodness, because I immediately employed the “hack, maim, and destroy” method, and took a monstrous chomp out of the bottom of the shrub. It looks a bit like a tree on the savannah – top heavy and totally bereft of foliage for as high up as the antelope can eat it. I’m low on antelope in Portland, but you get the idea.

After a year of looking at my poor misshapen viburnum, I think that I will take a kinder, gentler approach the next time around. This time, I think I’ll refer to our book on pruning (in which the “hack, maim, and destroy” method does not appear) for advice.

Learning about pruning on one’s lunch break? Priceless.

Timber’s bestselling title is Well-Tended Perennial Garden by Tracy Disabato-Aust. It’s had 28 printings in two editions and is just shy of 200,000 copies in print. Of course, we could not have predicted what was about to happen when we signed up Tracy’s book in 1993. We originally printed just 5000 copies–but even that was a pretty big print run for us at the time.

While I was preparing to present Tracy at our Fall sales conference, I spent a little time going through her book’s original folder. I had to chuckle as I read some of my original pre-contract notes:

“Can author’s PPA paper support a book?”
“Author has presented to professionals.”
“Even author found topic dull at one time?”
“No useless generalizations.”
“Need to have a broader range of maintenance? Watering?”
“Discuss containers?”
“Author quite an evangelist–she’s sold me.”

I’m delighted to report that Tracy neglected to take me up on many of my inexpert editorial suggestions–including my advice that she cut out the bit about soil amendment. Let’s get straight to the pruning, right?! If Tracy had followed my advice, I think we would still be working on the first printing of 5000 copies.