In Philadelphia, as in many cities based on a grid system, most yards are a rectangle or square jutting back from behind one's home. So, it stood to reason that I'd assume, upon buying my home, that my yard was also a square (insert foreshadowing music here).
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| Before: My square yard |
In the beginning, I was very careful with my flower beds, even extending string to create a line between my neighbors and I so that I wouldn't go over on to their property as I planted. I cultivated this square garden for seven years. In that time, I was able to get one of the three back beds juuuuust the way I wanted it; the others were still very much a work in progress.
Then the property behind us was finally developed, after ten years of threatening to do so, and we found out our yard wasn't a square but an odd zig zag. What was that we used to say as kids? Sike! Just kidding, Kathryn! Your yard isn't a square! The neighbors' kids are going to stand 8 feet from your back door and watch you scratch your butt!
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| 2011 - In between. This photo is from my back door, so you can see how close the new neighbors are. Notice how my middle planting bed is completely bisected. |
After what seemed like months of stomach aches at losing half of my yard and all of that fantastic open green space, I came to terms with it all. It would give me a chance to start over. After all, if I only really liked one-third of my planting beds, I wasn't losing too much, was I?
We put up a fence, partly to block the one the developer put up for the neighbors that wasn't our taste, and partly to gain some privacy.
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| 2011- New fence plus new and old planting beds. You can see the last remnants of the middle planting bed here. |
I was really worried that the fence would make the back yard seem very small and closed in.
I realized though that instead of the fence making the yard seem small, it defined the space and acted as an anchor for the flower beds.
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| 2012 - Tiny new planting bed with my attempt at a curve, and tiny new red-twig dogwood |
Last year I focused on assessing what had survived the move from old garden to new and added some plants here and there. Neighbor M kept asking, "You're going to dig out the bed, right?"
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| 2012 - Tiny, straight planting bed |
Yes, yes I was going to dig it out, but I had to wait until this spring to get the energy to dig up all of that sod. And when I did, in a frenzy of happiness that it was spring again, I removed about a foot and a half to two feet and created a nice, curved bed.
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| 2013 - I'm not climbing on the roof again for an arial shot so this will have to do. Looking better, still a work in progress. |
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| 2013 - Zig zag. Though the eating area is right next to the neighbors' playset, the fence creates a private oasis for us. |
After seeing how big everything is getting this year (particularly the red-twig dogwood!), my only regret is not digging the beds out further. There is absolutely no room left in the current beds in the back yard.
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| 2013 - Red twig dogwood crowds out everything around it but is an excellent privacy screen. (2.5 inches of rain the night before toppled plants over.) |
The only solution is to dig out a brand new planting bed in 2014, assuming I have the energy. For now, though, I like the back yard more than I ever did when it was a large, open square. Even if it's a fenced-in zig zag, I know that it's all mine, and I'm content with the way things are.
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| 2013. A happy jumble of plants. |
