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| You're a credit to your country, soldier; and in a jaunty outfit too. |
After a weirdly warm winter thus far, cold temperatures finally arrived in the Midwestern town where I live. I've had beef and barley soup in the crockpot, wool socks on my feet, and an extra blanket on the bed.
Just one week of freezing temps got me hankering for yard work. A girl always wants what she can't have, right?
Honestly, I've been hankering for yard work since I ripped apart the overgrown front yard. I counted on the wholesome white blanket of Midwestern snow to cover up my landscape lameness, my garden gaffe. But argh, we had to go and have record breaking, global warming sort of temps all season up until now. So the neighbors get to look at my churned up yard, and I get to cringe every time I pull up into my own driveway.
Still, the best part of gardening this time of year is the daydreaming. Possibly because the ONLY part of gardening this time of year is the daydreaming.
I've tried to do a little on-line research about what was common about urban gardening during the 30's and 40's when my house was brand new, and I've found very little except for the one thing that everyone knows about, which is victory gardening (check out the fabulous victory garden poster from the Library of Congress Archive above). While I certainly intend to grow a few veggies, right now the front yard mess takes precedence (and perennials).
Right now the landscaping consists of an uneven glob of beds that aren't properly edged, a gi-normous pampas grass thing that is so out of scale it looks likes its eating the northeast corner of the house, and a bunch of broken chunks of concrete that some former occupant used to construct a retaining wall near the driveway. Whee.
I'm going to keep looking for references (I wish I had a stack of Better Homes and Gardens magazines from the 1940s to page through); in the absence of solid research, I'm leaning towards a garden of classic perennials: irises, daylilies, viburnums, roses.
I put together a Pinterest board of inspirations pieces here. Go have a look. The fabulous lawn furniture below is from an antique shop called Kudzu in Atlanta, and I hope to journey there when I go visit my sister this summer.
All right people. I have no lawn chair, no iced tea, no bare feet. But I've got a stack of garden and seed catalogs. Happy garden daydreaming until April.
I sent in my seed order this week, so you are not alone!
ReplyDeleteI haven't ordered anything, and I'm not even sure I'll get to veggie gardening this year. The front yard is the big priority. That's a fancy way for saying I get to dig in the dirt and play with rocks.
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