Things I like: Garden dreams

Notes on planting a backyard oasis that's fit for a midsummer party

When we started house hunting in 2023, we wanted a yard that was a blank canvas. I didn’t want to have to hack away at someone else’s blackberry bushes or find surprise potatoes in the planters. New sod, a few trees, and two rose bushes were plenty when we found our little bungalow. Both the front yard and the back are fully fenced so Kona can roam. A shed stores our tools, and a shipping container houses our gear and bikes. But that’s about it. We got the blank canvas on our checklist. And now I want to turn it into something.

Other than building an outdoor dining table and hanging string lights last summer, we haven’t done much to it. The sod is patchy and dead now. It’s more like a mud pit, or a litter box for the outdoor cats. A magnolia tree in the middle of the grass has got to go eventually, as does the chain link fencing.

It is no shape to host a backyard dinner right now. But we’ve started telling friends that we’re throwing a solstice party, so now there’s accountability to start.

Here’s what it looks like out there today:

In just a few weeks, we’re going to cut away a few feet of the sod nearest the house to build a gravel patio for our dining table. I’m partial to decomposed gold granite, which packs down firm and is low maintenance. It will be bordered by two long cedar garden beds, positioned in a stretch that gets ample sunlight. I want to grow vegetables and herbs and flowers—or at least try.

These are a few plants I dream of having:

• Some kind of ornamental grass. I like the look of Pink Muhly and Blue Fescue.

• Definitely anemones. The Honorine Jobert varieties, with the yellow centers, are my favorite.

• Big bushes of rosemary and lavender in the front yard

• A trellis of jasmine against the shipping container

• Could we fit a fig tree somewhere?!

• Clover grass to replace the sod

On our walks around the neighborhood, I find myself taking photos of other people’s plants to understand what I like and what things look like during the different seasons. Foxglove. Cherry plums. Cornelian cherry blossoms. Festuca glauca, another name for fescue grass. I’ll have to go back to one block to snap a photo of a gorgeous yellowing bush. Until then, I can’t tell you what it is.

In the front yard, our dogwood is completely bare. Its twiggy branches drip with rain as I look out the front window. Beyond that, along the street, we have an apple tree that grew tart green fruits last summer. Sometimes I’d catch people picking apples off its lower branches, which made me so happy that I collected the ones up high and set them out in a bag for sharing. I’ll do that again this year.

Next to the apple tree is a garden bed that came with the house. It was full of eight bunches of ornamental kale that bugs infested shortly after we moved in. I ripped it out last summer and, after the first freeze last fall, mixed in a soil conditioner that the lady at the garden center recommended. With a long-handled shovel, I broke up the clay clods and sifted in the rich new dirt. Then I sprinkled a wildflower mix atop that lay dormant over the winter. Now that the temperatures have warmed and we’ve had several days of sunshine, little sprouts are pushing through the surface. They kind of look like weeds at this point, and I’m checking on them every day to see if they’ll turn into something more, which I hope they do.

I thought of my mom when I discovered that our bungalow came with two rose bushes. Ever since I can remember, she kept a rose garden. At my first childhood house, she taught me that banana peels can repel the tiny green aphids that munch holes in the leaves. At our next house, I didn’t pay much attention to her rose garden since I was more concerned with boys and studies and my first jobs. Besides, the roses were out of view on the side of the house. But when Steve and I lived there for a few months during COVID to use my dad’s tools and build out our van, I remember clipping off the most beautiful pink roses to cheer us up.

The first summer in our house, the rose bush close to the house bloomed with fuchsia flowers, and the one closest to the sidewalk bloomed with yellow ones. I clipped a few and set them in vases on the dining room table. Then they became unruly. I couldn’t keep up with them, and they clawed at my clothing when I walked past. When I found a thorn in Kona’s fur, I decided to take gardening shears to their bases. I chopped them all the way down. Knowing they’re resilient though, they’ll grow right back, and I’ll call my mom for help. She’ll know what to do. Or I’ll dig them up and plant lavender and rosemary in their place.

One project that Steve tells me isn’t essential but I’d like to tackle on a sunny day is painting the side of the tool shed with a mural. Once I’ve power washed the dirt and dust from the siding, I’ll suit up in my painting smock and a wide-brim hat, crack open a can of white paint, and freehand some funky shapes. If I mess up, it’ll be okay because it adds to the charm and, after all, it’s only the shed.

This is what I have in mind:

Credit: Indoek

We have a lot of work ahead. Trips to the garden center and hardware store. Sweat and muscle digging down into the hard dirt. Muck and mud under our boots and fingernails. Probably a few squabbles as we grow fatigued. Definitely more rain to hamper our plans. It’ll be worth it, I’m telling myself, when we can grill out there under the string lights. When we pick our first zucchini off the vine, and they’re laughably bigger than we anticipated. When we’re making a salad and step outside to gather a handful of mint. When we can sit out there and enjoy it.

Next time I write about our yard, I hope these are some of the updates. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with the inspiration for our midsummer party:

Read more Thinks I like columns from the archive here.

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