Spring in the 909

I've been meaning to keep a garden journal ever since tearing out the lawn in the backyard 3 years ago. Instead of a traditional written journal a blog with photos should provide a better record of the garden. I'll be able to see what grew, what didn't, document the garden's progress with photos and refer back if I need to. So here we go.

A few years ago I wanted to have our Jack of all trades create an arbor on a small patio in a patch where the lawn burned out every summer. "Jack" suggested we pull out the entire lawn and create an English garden. What a great idea. We have a small house and small yard so it shouldn't be too much to keep up (or so I thought). We decided on a corner bench with lattice screening and a small rose garden. Rose trees would be planted near the patio and seen from the dining room. Drought tolerant plants would make up the rest of the garden. In the hot dry summers of the 909 it seemed like a great plan.

I ordered roses from Jackson and Perkins as well as a complete drought tolerant perennial garden from another mail order vendor. "Jack" and I planted the original garden which included lavender, butterfly bushes, foxgloves, russian sage and coreopsis. That first spring was very rainy and wet drowning many of the drought tolerant plants. Three years later the roses are all with me, one lavender is huge, the coreopsis try to take over everything and 2 very spindly butterfly bushes are trying to survive.