Curb Appeal

You know that house...the one on the block whose yard is the prettiest? Flowers blooming at the right times so that a perfectly complementary blend of colors shows its best side to the world all summer long? Well, that was our house when we bought it. The gardens were beautiful, and it was clear to us, even without the reminders from the seller at the closing, that they had been lovingly planted and tended. That first summer, as things grew in without too much weed cover, the yard was indeed a showpiece and we were proud of it in spite of the fact that we could take no credit whatsoever. Summer two rolls around. You know that house...the one with the messiest yard on the block? Where the weeds are as high as the flowers and it looks as though the people who live in the house may have moved on and forgotten the garden? That was now our house -- how on earth did we go from the prettiest to the ugliest in one year? It turns out that it's a lot easier to maintain a garden when one is retired (as the previous owner was) than it is when one is working 12 hour days (guess who?). And I'm allergic to anything with pollen, and neither my husband nor I could recognize the difference between a weed or what should be in the garden until it had bloomed. We felt awful about pulling plants, because half the time we pulled what we should have left and left what we should have pulled. Fast forward to the third summer...this summer. Clearly the flowers weren't for us, but we couldn't just leave the terraced gardens a mess. So we bit the bullet, pulled nearly everything, and planted non-flowering evergreens that the deer don't eat (junipers). Some nice crisp green plants with red cedar mulch -- much more our maintenance style and aesthetic. The gardens are beautiful again, but not so showy, and I feel proud that we managed this each time I drive into the driveway or walk past the gardens (stopping to pull what are now obviously weeds) as I walk the dogs. It took us three years, and we didn't end up with anything quite so glamorous as the original gardens, but now they suit us and we don't have to hide our faces in shame in the neighborhood.