Inspiration and transformation

I have been enjoying the recent fine weather and embracing my inner cottage gardener. I live on a small lot with a backyard that is large enough to contain one very old sugar maple and small enough so that the areas that get full sun are confined to the margins. There is usually a breeze in the afternoon and if there are not too many mosquitoes it can be one of the most peaceful places to spend my time. 

When I moved to this house the landscaping was haphazard, uninspired and neglected. It took me a couple of seasons to remove the invasive shrubs, poorly sited saplings and a jungle of forsythia and open up the yard to the old field beyond. I built up one corner for a vegetable garden and installed an ephemeral wildflower garden in the shadow of the neighbors’ garage. I made a retaining wall out of broken-up slabs of foundation from a long-vanished outbuilding. I gathered columbine seeds and coaxed wild leeks to grow and slowly spread. 

Each year it took on more character as plants matured and found their place. My yard became a haven for wrens and hummingbirds and fireflies displaced from the field when it came under new management. I started a wattle fence that, five years on, has nearly enclosed the open sides of the yard. More recently, my wife has added roses, and a hedge of native shrubs: shad-blow, alder, winterberry, witch hazel. There is also now a tiny cottage for her alone, a shed transformed to a writing retreat, about which I have planted beans and sunflowers and white-flowered foxgloves.

I do not manicure my lawn and gardens. I tend to them, encouraging some growth while discouraging others. I weed and I prune and I delight in the subtle changes of the season. I plant fruit trees that will outlast my tenure here. I grumble at voles and I struggle with certain vegetables that really need more hours of daylight than my garden can offer. But by and large it is a place I love to be and where I prefer to spend these bright summer weekends, with my fingers in the earth, and the birds and butterflies for company. It is also a good place just to sit and watch, and listen and read, while the season lasts and the leaves still quaver in the midsummer breeze.

Tim Abbott is program director of Housatonic Valley Association’s Litchfield Hills Greenprint. His blog is at www.greensleeves.typepad.com.