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Gardening is Debb's other artistic passion.
About 6 years ago she began a flower garden and she has been
fascinated ever since. Gardening can truly be an intense creative
experience. She likes to think of it as painting and sculpture
using plants.
Her current garden is a backyard space filled
with a wide variety of perennial flowers, annuals, ground covers
and bulbs. Particular favorites are the irises and lilies. Most
of the flowers have yellow and purple blooms to create a strong
complementary theme against a field of textured green foliage.
This garden is in its third year of development.
It began as a neglected and overgrown garden that needed patience,
pruning and a new design. The shape of the garden, once a rectangle,
is now a sweeping arc defined by paving bricks from discarded
street work. The focal point of the garden is an arbor trellis
which is situated at the main curve of the garden. Late last
fall, a garden shed was added.
This spring a border fence was added along
the garden's west edge. A five panel gothic, treated lumber affair,
that was stained gray. This fence provides a privacy screen as
well as a structural backdrop for the shade garden. The plan
is to move the cone flowers along its north end next spring and
plant a variety of hostas on its southernmost, shaded end. Another
gothic curved fence was added at the edge of the brick patio.
This serves the purpose of camoflaging the above ground pool
and creating a border backdrop for the patio area. The patio
iteslf was expanded from 10' x 10' to 10' x 20'. This expansion
accomodates a sitting area for outdoor dining.
Also new to the garden this year are a variety
of garden ornaments. A concrete corinthian column now provides
a resting place for potted geraniums. A bronze sundial rests
among the coreopsis with moon and star post ornaments. Three
rusting aluminum frogs dance in the daylilies. This year's garden
has suffered the ravages of the 1999 drought in the Northeast.
It's spring flowers were very successful but due to the lack
of water, the late bloomers have had rather unspectacular blooms.
Watering was concentrated on the vegetable garden. Look below
for some of the better results.
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