Category Archives: Garden House

August 19, 2011 · 9:20 pm

PLANNING AHEAD

One of the things I love about gardening is planning.

Thinking ahead.

OK…dreaming.

After all, the soul of gardening is that you always get another chance.

It’s forgiving.

There will be another new season.

Giving me a new beginning.

That’s where the planning comes in.

Late summer’s planning ritual is actually for spring.

Spring Flowering Bulbs!

What kind?

What colors?

Repeat last years?

Do something totally new?

Where to begin?

For me I begin with a review of last year.

And hopefully some notes I took on what worked and what didn’t.

But…not this year – not a single word about last spring can be found.

That leaves my memory – HA!

I do remember thinking I loved the mix of colors last year.

But I wanted the tulips in front to be an earlier blooming variety.

This is the only bed where I pant annuals for consistent summer color.

It’s a small bed so I’m OK with only annuals – otherwise I’m a perennial girl you know.

I want the tulips there to bloom early and be gone by mid April so I can get the annuals going.

Last year I planted a Darwin Hybrid Impression Mix that my friend Mary spotted in the catalog.

Darwin Hybrid Impression Tulip Mix

They have the great huge blooms I’ve love, but they lingered longer than I would like.

So this year I’m switching to a earlier blooming Triumph Tulip Mix for the front only.

I know the blooms will be smaller but I’m going to give it a try.

Since building the garden house I have focused my tulips in the back on the path leading up to it.

Tip toe through the tulips!

For years I planted what I called “the Easter Egg” tulips.

Pink Impression, Golden Impression, Menton, Ivory Floradale and Negrita.

Darwin Hybrids Impression Tulips Golden Apeldoorn, Pink Impression, Negrita, Ivory Floradale

Pink, Yellow, Salmon Pink, White and Purple.

Most of these are Darwin Hybrid Tulips.

More than 2 feet tall with huge blooms and clear solid colors.

But last year I strayed from this pattern.

I planted a mix of bi-colors and solids.

They also had staggered bloom times which meant they bloomed off and on for a month.

So this year I have ordered a few of each of the following tulips:

Pastel Mayflowering Mix, Scheeper’s Sports Mix, Lefeber Hybrid El Nino, Darwin Hybrid Jaap Groot, Ollioules and Pink Impression – in my opinion the best tulip God and Holland created!

I’m also trying a lime green Triumph Tulip called Evergreen.

And I always plant a few Parrot Tulips in another location.

They bloom later and their ruffled petals feel like leather.

Parrot Tulip Blumex - try a few

Different – dramatic – wonderful!

Why so much tulip talk?

They are after all in most places an annual.

They rot easily in beds that get watered all summer.

For me they are the good news.

Though Hellebores, Crocus and Daffodils all proceed them

Their appearance tells me that gardening season is on its way.

And that makes me happy – deep down inside happy.

If I’ve learned anything over these decades it’s to treat yourself to things that make you truly happy.

Family…friends…nature…good conversation…the ocean…tulips.

Next week we’ll cover the rest, but for now…dream tulips!

Gail

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August 5, 2011 · 2:40 pm

THE MAKING OF THE GARDEN HOUSE

A Spring view of the Garden House

When I was growing up my sisters, cousins  and I spent lots of time with our maternal grandparents.

They were the only grandparents  we ever really knew.

What wonderful memories.

While my great-grandmother was  living with my grandmother

There were four generations of women

Doing what women and girls did in the 50’s.

Standing over the floor furnace flannel night gowns filled with warm air.

Six of us sitting on the living room floor playing solitaire on everyone’s aces.

But perhaps my favorite memories are of Grandma’s wash house.

Whenever we would gather at her house in the summer

Grandma would turn her wash house into our play house.

There were trunks of old clothes.

A window converted in our minds into a drive up window where we  happily served our “customers”.

And, of course, our “swimming pool”.

Grandpa would pull a cattle tank up to the house and fill it with water for our summer swims.

Ann, Gloria and me in our "swimming pool".

It was our place.

We were indulged.

We were loved.

I’ve carried those days in my head and heart for decades.

I dreamed of a garden version of the wash house.

So…one winter a few years back when it was too cold for golf

John needed a project.

What’s next he asked?

Master Bath or Garden House?

Being my boring practical self

Master Bath I answered.

Thankfully, John’s more fun.

So we spent the winter designing the garden house.

We had been talking about it since we moved here

Collecting pictures of structures we liked.

But…none were exactly what we wanted.

In time it simply came from John’s  imagination.

He wanted it to fit into our backyard.

To look like it had always been there.

To get the scale and slope of the roof right

He built a foam board-model.

Weekend after golf-less weekend he tweaked away.

I’ve learned the process after 35+ years of projects and marriage.

I know exactly when to enter into that process

And when to bow out.

It’s an interesting rhythm we have mastered.

While John proportioned the outside

He and I negotiated the inside space.

John’s best idea was to build a partial wall well into the space.

Behind it we could stash the lawn mower, leaf blower and other unsightly things.

My contribution was to panel the entire space in peg board.

By spring we were ready to begin.

But first we had to remove the wall of arborvitae and small shed that inhabited that side of the yard.

Taking down a "wall" of Arborvitae

It was ….well….alarmingly bare.

But exciting at the same time.

All through the spring and early summer we watched as it rose from the bare spot.

Framing

John oversaw every detail

It was clear this was not your average backyard shed when the cupola arrived from Maine.

Almost done

It is for me a peaceful hub of my passion.

Sunday evenings find me stretched out on the little antique French settee

Sore to the bone

And listening to Krista Tippett’s “On Being” on NPR.

(The best program on radio or television.)

It has served as the bar for parties

The "potting bench bar"

The backdrop for bridal showers.

And the heart of the small luncheons Debra and I host as we interview “Wise Women”.

Lunch with Debra and Wise Women

 

The master bathroom is still circa 1947.

It’s day will come.

I am oh so thankful to John for that golf-less winter

And the gift it brought me.

I look forward to playing in it with my own grandchildren someday.

Creating memories with them.

For them.

Gail

P.S. A few years after we completed the garden house we ran across this newly published book.

Look familiar?

 

 

 

 

 

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