The backyard as I bought it, reflecting only minor changes that I made to it.
This is my backyard. It’s got some good bones. The mature trees are, for the most part, quite lovely. There are several maples, a sweet gum (my children love collecting the spiky seed pods, they refer to them as korok seeds from playing Zelda: A Breath of the Wild), a few pines and other conifers, and a tree with compound pinnate leaves that I don’t know the name of. In the far back there are some nice red cedars as well. I’m trying to forget about the ugly scraggly bushes in the center. They will be coming out anyway.
Please forgive my lack of photography skills. This picture was taken at the wrong time of day. Even I can see that. However, this photo is one of three (the other two will appear shortly) that I took before I started working on the garden. It reflects, for the most part, the starting point of my garden. It was taken in February of this year
I should mention that last October I planted over 100 spring bulbs. If you look in the leafy mulch area under the trees on the right hand side of the picture, you can see some of the green tips of the daffodils emerging from their winter slumber. Unfortunately the squirrels dug up the hyacinth, tulips, and most of the crocuses. Daffodils might be the only spring bulbs I get in the back.
Back to the starting garden photos: I have two more areas to show you, the back-left and back-right.
The tree you see in the foreground of the back-right side picture is a juniper bush, which I trimmed. I wanted to open up the center a bit so that birds could perch there. It’s right outside my window, and I like to see the cardinals, nuthatches, and mourning doves that are regular visitors. I also prefer the tree shape to the bush shape, and the branches no longer scratch the siding on my house, so win-win-win.
The juniper tree beyond it (well-lit) is also in need of trimming, which I plan to do soon. In fact, every tree is in need of trimming, and I have spent a goodly amount of time working on that. I don’t have all the safety equipment to do the really tall stuff myself, however, so I might have outsource some of the tree care. I plan to do as much work as possible myself so I can save my budget for the plants themselves, but even I can’t do everything.
I have my work cut out for me, but I like outdoor work. It reminds me of my wild childhood, and it feels more like play than chores. Perhaps that is why I love gardening so much. Nature is calming, and I take joy, not only from the end result, but from the process as well.