A Front Garden Renovation in East York
Performing garden makeovers (miracles?) seem to be my specialty as I've done more than a few this season. Although the actual weeding can be tiring, it's very gratifying to see order emerging out of the chaos due to my two hands (and strong back, for now.)
I recently was invited to renovate a small front garden in the Toronto neighbourhood of East York. Take a look at this "before" picture of the main central bed in front of the house, looking down from the porch:
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| East York Toronto Front Garden Renovation Before |
As the saying goes, the space has "a lot of potential" which is a euphemism for "a lot of physical work is involved" in getting the garden back to a clean slate. Given the amount of weeds which have grown unimpeded all season, this means methodical hand digging in order to remove all the weeds by their roots. (I don't use herbicides so weeding for me involves a long handled shovel.)
Our immediate goals (after discussing with the client) were to make the main front street bed presentable by removing the weeds, planting a few dozen daffodil, grape hyacinth and allium bulbs for next spring and laying down some cedar mulch.
After a long day, both beds next to the path leading to the front door were weed-free and ready to accept the new bulbs and future perennials. Lastly, I spread a layer of mulch in order to reduce weeding and watering requirements.
Here are more before and after pictures of the small project from various angles around the sidewalk and front porch:
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| East York Toronto Front Garden Renovation After |
By the way, I left the bulb packaging on the beds so that the client can take some pictures or notes and have an idea what bulbs will emerge in what locations next April.
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| Toronto Front Garden Makeover in East York Before |
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| Toronto Front Garden Makeover in East York After |
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| Toronto Front Garden Renovation East York Before |
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| Toronto Front Garden Renovation East York After |
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| Toronto Front Garden Renovation East York Before |
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| Toronto Front Garden Renovation East York After |
I'll provide the homeowner a plant shopping list so that during next spring, she can get the perennials and fill up this prominently visible garden with lots of colour and form. So, yes, I'm hopeful that we can go from weedy to wonderful in a few seasons, now that the mundane but necessary task of clearing out the gardens of mature weeds is out of the way.
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