Or "There's A Front Yard in There, Somewhere!"
At the end of every work season, I reflect back on some of nicer gardens I've worked in and some of the, well, not so nice. You may know some yards or gardens of the latter variety on your street; heck, you may even own one. That's o.k., I'm not here to judge but some cleanup jobs for me are simply more onerous than others due to the garden's size and amount of weeds, debris, etc. Occasionally, I'll just advise the prospective client that the scope of work is beyond what I can do and to hire someone else. There may be an awkward pause but it's better for me to walk away from this kind of project than take it on, find I'm overwhelmed and do a less than perfect job.
This post covers a recent cleanup I didn't walk away from (although when I first saw the garden, I was tempted to!)
The owners of this property in Toronto's trendy Little Italy area didn't do much maintenance for their front yard this season, it's safe to say. The somewhat rectangular area is about 20 feet wide by 60 feet long and, more or less, covered with clumps of mature goldenrod, Yellow Avens, sow thistle, aster, burdock and lemon balm (all perennial weeds). Whatever remaining grass is overgrown and patchy.
They hired me to "tidy up" things so here are some pictures showing how the front yard looked like before and after my efforts:
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| Toronto Little Italy Front Garden Cleanup Before |
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| Little Italy Fall Front Garden Cleanup Before |
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| The view from the sidewalk |
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| Little Italy Fall Front Garden Cleanup Before |
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| Little Italy Fall Front Garden Cleanup Before |
From the sidewalk, you may see the overgrown clumps of grass, sucker shoots from the base of the small maple tree, four mock orange shrubs and impressive stands of goldenrod and asters. What's not visible are several very-much-alive stumps of Siberian Elm (weed trees which were cut down in the past) and lots of thistles. |
Mockorange shrubs in the forefront,
goldenrods and asters behind them |
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| Toronto Little Italy Fall Front Garden Cleanup Before |
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Above is the view leading
towards the front door |
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And the view looking from the
front door towards the street
(Photo credit: picture taken by the clients) |
7 Hours Later....
How do you eat an elephant? Take one bite at a time, as the saying goes. In a severe clean up situation like this one, I start cutting down the stalks and leave the roots alone temporarily. Once all the vegetation above ground has been cut and carried away, I'll go in with my long handled shovel and start digging out entire root balls. All the mature weeds are perennials so just leaving them with their tops pruned looks nice but, of course, ineffective with dealing with them on a long term basis.
Fortunately, the weather was nice, dry and cool. Tackling this in the middle of July would not be fun!
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| Little Italy Fall Front Garden Cleanup After |
Oh my. Is there a what's next? Hope you were able to sell some low-maintenance design services that you might maintain as well.
ReplyDeleteNo, this cleanup was simply to appease the neighbours I think. The clients are doing major renovations to their home next year so this front area will be a construction zone in the spring. I just think they didn't want the front to look like an abandoned lot, lol...
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