A Front Garden Rescue in the Allenby Neighbourhood of Toronto

I Can Hear the Neighbours Breathe a Sigh of Relief!

Once or twice every work season, I'm asked to weed or clean up a garden that "has gone to seed", that is, the weeds have taken over the beds or the existing shrubs haven't been pruned in over a decade. If things are too extreme and/or the gardens are too large, I often won't accept the project (I work by myself after all.) 

So when I was given the client's address, walked up to the house and saw this, I thought "well, here we go again!"

Allenby Toronto Front Yard Cleanup Before 

Here are some other views from various angles. They don't get any better.

Allenby Toronto Front Yard Cleanup Rescue Before

Toronto Allenby Front Yard Cleanup Before 

Toronto Allenby Front Yard Cleanup Before 

Allenby Toronto Front Yard Cleanup Before

My heart sank a little (well, a lot) lower when I saw the river rocks protruding between the weeds as the odds were very high that the original installer used the classic "river rock on top of landscape fabric" technique. For those who have to weed these areas, you know my pain. Weeds will grow up and through the thin fabric from below or in between the rock crevices. 

This was certainly the case here as the rocks are partially hidden by weeds.

I knew the weeding had to occur over several visits and wasn't looking forward to dealing with the river rocks.

The upper tier had no rocks but infested, for lack of a better word, with grass and creeping bellflower:

Toronto Allenby Front Yard Weeding Before 

Toronto Front Yard Cleanup Before in the Allenby neighbourhood 

Being Sisyphus Again

Remember the Greek legend of Sisyphus? You can research as to why he was punished but his eternal fate was to roll a huge boulder up a hill in the netherworld, seeing it fall back down and forced to roll it back up over and over. In other words, he was destined to repeat a futile, frustrating and backbreaking task.

Sounds familiar?

Just like me and river rocks!

For this cleanup, I had to place all the river rocks on the street (lucky they were near the road), uncover the old and tattered landscape fabric underneath, discard it, remove the weeds growing underneath, roll a new piece of fabric and place the rocks back on top.

Unlike poor Sisyphus though, this is not an eternal punishment for me at this client's front yard in dealing with the rocks but rest assured, I will be doing the same thing at another client's place sooner or later.

Here are some "after" pictures showing the garden being rescued. The clients were thrilled with the "new" area and I'm sure their neighbours were too.

Allenby Toronto Front Yard Cleanup After

Allenby Toronto Front Yard Cleanup After 

Toronto Allenby Front Yard Cleanup After 

Toronto Allenby Front Yard Cleanup After 

Allenby Toronto Front Yard Cleanup Rescue After 

Toronto Allenby Front Yard Weeding After 

Toronto Front Yard Cleanup After in the Allenby neighbourhood 

I guarantee weeds will reappear within a few years in between the river rocks but someone else can be Sisyphus for a day then.

Peek A Boo, I See You!

A Beaconsfield Village Front Garden Reveals Itself (With My Help)

Garden Rescue Hero (trademark, just kidding) comes to save the day! Luckily for me, the size of this central Toronto garden in the Beaconsfield Village neighbourhood is very small. Let's just say, my heavy duty loppers came in very handy with this cleanup.

Beaconsfield Village Toronto front yard
summer garden cleanup before 

All the various shrubs were unpruned for several seasons and gave the homeowners, neighbours and pedestrians that unintended wild Amazonian look.

Beaconsfield Village Toronto front yard
summer garden cleanup before

The picture below wonderfully shows a type of grape vine (wild or cultivated) that is using the large burning bush as some sort of arbour. The grape was also growing up into the small-sized maple which is the dominant tree in this tiny space.

Toronto Beaconsfield Village front
yard garden cleanup before 

A closeup below of the "forest floor" showing a mixture of annual weeds and Siberian Elm saplings.

Toronto Beaconsfield Village front
yard summer garden cleanup before 

A type of wild rose (perhaps a shrub rose) which obviously hasn't been pruned for several seasons and menacing the neighbours enjoying their bench. But this is Toronto, no one ever sits this close to the sidewalk!

Toronto Beaconsfield Village front
yard summer garden cleanup before

Order and scale have been restored!

Beaconsfield Village Toronto front
yard summer garden cleanup after 

Besides weeding, I pruned the two rear burning bushes by about two or three feet down so that they didn't look so monstrous. I also cut off one or two small side branches of the maple (you can see its trunk in the middle of the picture above) which were blocking access to the front door and the along the sidewalk).

Beaconsfield Village Toronto front
yard summer garden cleanup after

I cut back the grape vine and wild rose to about three feet. The entire garden gave a big sigh of relief after this cleanup. I know the clients did!

Toronto Beaconsfield Village front
yard garden cleanup after 

Now we have space to grow nice things or, at least, to have a layer of cedar mulch or wood chips laid down to reduce weeding tasks.

Beaconsfield Village front yard
Toronto garden cleanup after 

I knew there was a garden in there somewhere!