Design Your Garden to Fit Your Needs

By Pat Welsh

“I don’t know where to begin!” Dannie said. One week earlier she and her husband John and their three young sons and had moved into a tract house in a brand new neighborhood inland from Los Angeles. The two of us were sitting on the back lawn staring ata steep bankcovered with ice plant (Carpobrotus) and thewooden fence that surrounded the yard. Other than the lawn, there was nothing else to look at—Zilch!

“If I were you I’d start with a list,” I said. “For example you and John have this hobby of growing roses. You have loads of space to indulge in that, but it will look much better if you have a design. How about you and John each make a listof everything you need and would like to have in your garden?Then you could combine your lists andwalk around together and plan how to make it work in the space you have. When I do that I try to let the spirit of the placehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_of_placeor the Genius Loci tell me where everything will go.”

Both of our husbands were lawyers, but Louhad never been a gardener and unlike John he didn’t know which end of the hammer to hang onto, so in my case I did all the planning, gardening and carpentry too. I had an older brother who’d taught me carpentry, plumbing and you name it.All this might be why I eventually became a professional horticulturist, garden writer, and TV demonstrator, up on ladders or down on my knees building things. I also found out I liked working this way. There was no one to please but me, and whatever I did in our own garden, Lou always loved the result.

I didn’t see Dannie again for two or three years and then one day she phoned me and said, “Come on over! I want you to see what we’ve done!” I could tell she was excited and when I got thereI was blown away, in fact very nearly bowled over.

“I can see your boysgot a place to play!” I said jumping out of the way of a happykid on a trike.

“You said ‘Start with a list’, Pat, and that’s what we did!” said Dannie. “We needed an awful lot— pathways, play spaces, patio, vegetable garden, orchard, rose garden and outdoor dining room—but whenwe walked around together solutions seemed to springright out of the ground. John said,“Let’s pour a concrete pathway around the house and put flowerbeds on each side. One of the workmen suggested we useiron sulfate to stain the concretebrownhttp://members.socket.net/~llile/ConcreteStain/Concrete_Stain.html.

“I love it,” I said.

“Thepath keepsthe house clean and gives us a way forwheelbarrows, but we never imagined what would happen. The minute the concrete dried and weopened the gates on each side of the house, our boys andhalf the kids in the neighborhoodbegan riding their bikes and trikes around and around the house. It’s been that way ever since!”
This triple-purpose path made a hit with me—I’d grown up in a house with a courtyard where my brother and I rodeour bikes, but there was more to see. The back lawn was now replaced bya patio with a tile-topped wallprovidingextra seating. It also served another purpose, it separatedthe ornamental gardenfromthe edibles. Beyond the patio, Dannie and Johnhad built raised beds of redwood and filled them with topsoilhttps://patwelsh.com/wpmu/blog/garden-q-a/vegetables-in-raised-beds-problems-with-yellow-leaves/These raised beds were now filled with a thriving vegetable garden and I could see Dannie was very proud of it. In onecorner of the yardDannie and John hadbuilt a play yard containing asand box, swings and a climbing gym, but the kids seemed to like the path best. Dannie and John had also found space to tuck in a sizeable rose garden. Flanking the sides of the vegetable garden wererose arbors http://www.google.com/search?q=rose+arbors&hl=en&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=3NqZT9P2L6SK2gXZrM2VBw&sqi=2&ved=0CJQBELAE&biw=1572&bih=1016and each one had a bench beneath it withbeds of shrub roses on the sides.

“So far, we never have time to sit on them!” laughed Dannie. “But someday!”

The next thing Dannie showed me was how they had clipped off all the ugly ice plant from the bank and then terraced and planted the bank. She explained to me that they hadleft the roots of the iceplant in the groundto hold the ground through the winter rains. After that they’d usedbroken concretehttp://tinaramsey.blogspot.com/2011/06/broken-concrete-patio.html to build walls, paths, steps and terraces on which they planted their orchard of fruit treeshttps://patwelsh.com/wpmu/blog/citrus-fruit-trees/fruit-trees/. Finally, they’dreplaced the iceplant with colorful perennials, flowering shrubs and groundcovers.

What I loved most was the outdoor dining room. At the back of the property, in front of the bank, John and Dannie had built a twenty-foot long pergolahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pergola withatrestle table and benches beneath itcapable of seating a sizeable party of family and friends. As a final touchthey’d planted California Concord grapesfor shade. http://www.mccabesnursery.com/Old%20Site/Products%20Pages/Fruit%20Trees/California%20Concord%20Grapes.htm

“I can’t think of a more romantic place for al fresco meals than under a grape arbor,” I said. “Every day is like a free trip to Italy!”

All this happened a long time ago.Today Dannie and John still live in that house, and they still growtheir beloved roses, vegetables and fruit trees. But now Dannie’s and John’s grandchildrenride their bikes around and around the house and through the garden. It’s a great example of howby making a list of what youwant and need and then listening to the spirit of the place, you can end up with a magical and romanticgardenthat fulfills your dreams and gives you many years of happiness and delight.