Nearly Grass-less
Neil and I have been planning to have a nearly grass-less yard ever since we moved to our home in 2008 and fell in love with the yard, river, and neighborhood. We have done most of the work between May 2011 and now. In truth, it's a lot of work, but the rewards are endless -- especially when viewed through our wonderful windows. We'll never have a completely grass-less yard, because Drake needs somewhere to romp and roll around, without trampling all of our hard work. But, we are minimizing the grass. The picture below gives you an idea of the current state of our yard. I mapped two pictures onto each other; it's not perfect, but it gives my readers of sense of our progress. Neil's exact phrasing is that he wants a "cacophony" of flowers, trees, shrubs, and ground cover in our yard. It's difficult to be patient, waiting for plants to mature, but we're on our way.
So, here's a little "garden tour" of the "Boylas" (Boyer and Douglas combined) yard. I have provided links to some of the more unusual plants/trees.
1. The granite. The pile of granite that cannot be used for steps, because it is off by 1/2 inch. Yes, 1/2 inch. Truth to tell, we sort of love the granite now. You can't see it from this picture, but it has created an "entrance" of sorts into our yard. This fits with Neil's preference for yard which looks (a) mildly abandoned and (b) a small working farm. Don't expect anything that looks well manicured. Neil can just barely stand the presence of mulch!
2. Butterfly bush
3. Holly bushes - we have 3; 2 are paired in a prince and princess match and the other is a Burford Holly
4. Roses, roses and more roses. The big open patch is our rose garden, where we planted 22 rose bushes last summer. I think that 19 made it through the winter. We also have climbing roses on the "little" arbor, a pink/red knock-out rose bush against the shed, a yellow rose bush near #7, a new yellow knock-out that is yet to be planted, and climbing pastel pink roses on the front of our house.
5. Our wonderful Powwow River. Near #5 is also the Catalpa tree which I forgot to number. How we love this tree. It blooms in mid-June and the blossoms are wonderful and fragrant. Neil and I had never seen them in other parts of New England, but they are all over Amesbury.
6. Weeping crab tree
7. Flower gardens that include tulips in the spring, lots of Asian lilies (or that's what the bag from Reny's always says), foxglove, inspire blue speedwell, day flowers (which I now understand are invasive), sunflowers, and some other flowers than I cannot remember. We have a similar assortment in front of our house, especially featuring tiger lilies, which are also to the top left of the small arbor.
8. Dorothy Wyckoff pieris
9. Dwarf Alberta spruce - one of my favorite evergreens
10. Stewertia tree
11. Red bud tree
12. Weeping pussy willow tree
13. Some type of miniature pear tree, which I cannot remember. These line the streets in downtown Amesbury and have a wonderful bloom in early spring.
14. Rose of Sharon. We have three of these and they are wonderful when they are in full bloom!
15. Oh, the dahlia beds! We have 3 primary dahlia beds. I worked had to combine two of them this year, but was only partially successful. I planted 5 laundry-baskets full of dahlias - 99% of them are dark burgundy with a yellow center. These all came from our wonderful neighbor, Bob, who will be featured in a future blog post.
16. Many things to climb the new arbor - wisteria, grapes, something that has the word "lace" in it, but I cannot remember it.
17. Bleeding heart bush
18.Our wonderful Silver Grasses, which get to be 11 feet tall and "tassel-out" at the end of the summer. We love them; they provide us with a little privacy and they made a wonderful rustling sound in a gentle breeze.
19. Bearberry bushes
20. Climbing hydrangea
21. In this corner are 2 azaleas and 1 hydrangea.
In the back yard we have a pear tree older than Neil (now, that's saying something!), a Kousa dogwood, and 3 rhododendrons that Neil planted this spring. The backyard also has 3 boring arbor vitae and a wild, sand rose from our neighbor, Richard, who will also be the focus of a future blog post. That rose bush starting blooming yesterday - a lovely pink. We also have a "regular" dogwood that didn't make it into this picture - over near the river and a mimosa tree -- which couldn't please Neil more.
Thanks for taking this tour with me. Stay tuned for more pictures from our yard and gardens throughout the summer!
 |
| The current state of our yard, June 2012 |
1. The granite. The pile of granite that cannot be used for steps, because it is off by 1/2 inch. Yes, 1/2 inch. Truth to tell, we sort of love the granite now. You can't see it from this picture, but it has created an "entrance" of sorts into our yard. This fits with Neil's preference for yard which looks (a) mildly abandoned and (b) a small working farm. Don't expect anything that looks well manicured. Neil can just barely stand the presence of mulch!
2. Butterfly bush
3. Holly bushes - we have 3; 2 are paired in a prince and princess match and the other is a Burford Holly
4. Roses, roses and more roses. The big open patch is our rose garden, where we planted 22 rose bushes last summer. I think that 19 made it through the winter. We also have climbing roses on the "little" arbor, a pink/red knock-out rose bush against the shed, a yellow rose bush near #7, a new yellow knock-out that is yet to be planted, and climbing pastel pink roses on the front of our house.
5. Our wonderful Powwow River. Near #5 is also the Catalpa tree which I forgot to number. How we love this tree. It blooms in mid-June and the blossoms are wonderful and fragrant. Neil and I had never seen them in other parts of New England, but they are all over Amesbury.
6. Weeping crab tree
7. Flower gardens that include tulips in the spring, lots of Asian lilies (or that's what the bag from Reny's always says), foxglove, inspire blue speedwell, day flowers (which I now understand are invasive), sunflowers, and some other flowers than I cannot remember. We have a similar assortment in front of our house, especially featuring tiger lilies, which are also to the top left of the small arbor.
8. Dorothy Wyckoff pieris
9. Dwarf Alberta spruce - one of my favorite evergreens
10. Stewertia tree
11. Red bud tree
12. Weeping pussy willow tree
13. Some type of miniature pear tree, which I cannot remember. These line the streets in downtown Amesbury and have a wonderful bloom in early spring.
14. Rose of Sharon. We have three of these and they are wonderful when they are in full bloom!
15. Oh, the dahlia beds! We have 3 primary dahlia beds. I worked had to combine two of them this year, but was only partially successful. I planted 5 laundry-baskets full of dahlias - 99% of them are dark burgundy with a yellow center. These all came from our wonderful neighbor, Bob, who will be featured in a future blog post.
16. Many things to climb the new arbor - wisteria, grapes, something that has the word "lace" in it, but I cannot remember it.
17. Bleeding heart bush
18.Our wonderful Silver Grasses, which get to be 11 feet tall and "tassel-out" at the end of the summer. We love them; they provide us with a little privacy and they made a wonderful rustling sound in a gentle breeze.
19. Bearberry bushes
20. Climbing hydrangea
21. In this corner are 2 azaleas and 1 hydrangea.
In the back yard we have a pear tree older than Neil (now, that's saying something!), a Kousa dogwood, and 3 rhododendrons that Neil planted this spring. The backyard also has 3 boring arbor vitae and a wild, sand rose from our neighbor, Richard, who will also be the focus of a future blog post. That rose bush starting blooming yesterday - a lovely pink. We also have a "regular" dogwood that didn't make it into this picture - over near the river and a mimosa tree -- which couldn't please Neil more.
Thanks for taking this tour with me. Stay tuned for more pictures from our yard and gardens throughout the summer!
Beautiful! I want Neil to come down and build us a pergola.
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