Evolution of the Front Garden

I was devastated when the huge ash tree in the front yard succumbed to emerald ash borer and was cut down by the city.

But this was an opportunity to totally redo the garden!

We planted a red oak and dozens of sun-loving native meadow plants. Below is a photo of the new garden on planting day, May 2018.

Planting day, May 28, 2018

Here it is, a year later, August 2019.

The native meadow plants have flourished with very little maintenance and almost no supplementary watering. Below, the front garden at the beginning of its third growing season, May 2020.

And here it is, flourishing in late summer of its third growing season, August 2020.

Chard and the Creeper

Every year, I plant Swiss chard from seed in a large-ish pot along the front walkway.

Some Virginia creeper volunteered in the spot, and I love the way it rambles. I cut the creeper back every now and again but allow it to cool the space.

May, 2021

The young Swiss chard leaves always get munched by leaf miners but I don’t do much other than squish them. I figure that the leaf miner season is short and the chard is indestructible. Maybe one year I’ll cover the newly planted chard with a row cover…

June, 2021

August 2021

But for the past few years, the chard has flourished with almost no care, and the creeper has done its thing. Generosity!

Walkway Veggies

At the beginning of the pandemic, I was anxious to maximize food production in every available space not already growing native plant habitat. That meant bumping up production in the walkway between our house and the neighbour’s.

Tomatoes, peppers and basil in the sunny walkway beside the house.

Herbs also do well in pots in this spot.

Next year, more kale!

Lovely Little Fumitory

I’ve made a new friend: rock harlequin (Corydalis sempervirens, aka Capnoides sempervirens), a fumitory.

Rock harlequin (Corydalis sempervirens) in our front garden.

I’d vaguely known about this plant (I love all the fumitories) but had never grown it until this year, when Jonas Spring (aka Ecoman) gave me a seedling and suggested I plant it in a gravelly, poor-soil spot. I had just the place—a small sunny corner beside the wild blue lupine (Lupinus perennis). (I read later that rock harlequin grows in Midwestern oak savannas, too.)

I immediately fell for its lacy foliage, but it’s the delicate, tubular, bi-coloured flowers that really captured my heart: peachy pink and yellow.

My love for this little charmer grew even stronger when I was surprised by a little patch of it during a canoe trip at Point Grondine Park. There it was, blooming on some rocks at our campsite, and I felt such a deep connection between our temporary living quarters on the granite Shield and out little patch of garden at home.

Rock harlequin (Corydalis sempervirens) at Point Grondine Park.

Very much hoping that this biennial self-seeds and shows up in the garden again next year.

Lots of Logs

I’ve noticed that many gardeners are afraid of dead wood—not the dead wood on live shrubs and trees, which can be a sign of disease, but dead wood like old logs etc. used ornamentally, strewn on the ground.

My backyard garden is full of old logs and dead wood used decoratively.

Well, I’d like to advocate for the practice of including logs and other old wood in the garden! Our backyard woodland garden is full of decorative old wood that serves a crucial function as habitat. (Some of the old wood has sentimental value, too, but that’s a story for another time…okay, I can i.d. most of our old Christmas tree trunks in the yard, and I love having them there!)

It’s amazing to see all the LIFE this dead wood supports! Beetles, bees, ants, hover flies, digger wasps, decomposer organisms, birds galore! Fungi in every shape, size and colour erupt after every rainfall.

All this life is not something to be afraid of. It’s a sign that the garden is working!

I collect dead wood everywhere. Branches that come down in parks. Pruning from healthy trees in the yard. Branches that break off in windstorms. Healthy neighbourhood trees that have been cut down for one reason or another (usually a tragedy, as far as I’m concerned).

Yes, it’s important to avoid wood from diseased trees, or wood infested with termites, but there is a lot of healthy wood around for the taking. Arborists are another good source.

I use wood to line paths, to create focal points, to support floppy plants and a cup of coffee—there’s no end to the potential uses.

And every once in a while there are surprises. We have a salvaged log that’s been dead for three years, and every year it sprouts leaves (seeds land in its crevasses). Talk about the life force in action.

I’m not sure it’s even accurate to refer to “dead” wood. It’s slowly decomposing, supporting all kinds of organisms, slowly returning its life to the soil.

I love the way that death brings life to the garden.

Wood Chips: Never Too Many

Yes, I am that person who, when she hears tree work being done in the neighbourhood, runs outside (sometimes in my pj’s) to find out what and why they’re cutting. More than once, my questions have led to better pruning by the Hydro crew. (Stop hacking the main trunk, people!) I consider it a public service in defense of the urban forest.

I also consider it a public service that many arborist companies will give people free wood chips when you ask. Oh, and I ask! Most years, we get one big load dumped in the driveway.

And then I spend the next few days wondering, what have I done?!

And yet, miraculously, the pile gets absorbed into the garden without fail.

Sometimes, the wood chip disribution turns into a community event, and the neighbours bring their shovels.

Every year, after many hours of hard labour lugging the load to the backyard, I delight in the look and foot-feel of the newly replenished wood chip path.

Gaying Up the Garden for Pride

Haapy Pride everyone!

And just for fun, a Pride flag of native plants that are larval hosts for swallowtail butterflies!

 From left to right:

Paw paw (Asimina triloba), host for zebra swallowtail
Tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipifera), host for eastern tiger swallowtail
Spicebush (Lindera benzoin), host for spicebush swallowtail
Hop tree (Ptelea trifoliata), host for giant swallowtail
Chokecherry (Prunus virginiana), host plant for eastern tiger swallowtail
Dutchman’s pipe (Aristolochia macrophylla), host plant for pipevine swallowtail

The Backyard: Originally and Now

When I first moved in, eleven years ago, the backyard had a few trees (a sugar maple, redbud and chokecherry), a largish area of lawn, and some non-native shrubs and perennials.

April 2010

A July 2010 visit with my niece Deanna and nephew Christopher in my new backyard.

Rather than cut the grass, I grew pumpkins in the lawn.

And I planted native trees and shrubs, lots of them: sycamore, eastern hemlock, eastern white cedar, serviceberry, pussy willow, alternate-leaved dogwood, 3 paw paws, 3 staghorn sumacs, and American chestnut. (A blue beech came later.)

For the next few years, while the trees were growing and there was still lots of sun, I didn’t really start transforming the understory. I grew a lot of vegetables instead, some in raised beds.

As the trees filled in, the yard started to feel like a forest, and years of building the soil with loads of dead leaves ensued that native woodland perennials could thrive.

Here’s the backyard woodland garden in mid-June this year.

The sycamore, which I planted in 2010 (and can be seen in the photo before this one, in the foreground on the right, with light green leaves), is now the 40-foot-tall beauty with a big honking trunk in this photo. I’m amazed by how much it has grown in just 11 years.