Taming The Wild....

When we bought this house back in 1972, our back yard featured three huge black locust trees, a clump of white birch and a Carolina Poplar ..it was a regular forest out there! It was shady and perfect for a woodland garden, which was just what I wanted...so I set out to encourage one.....and it was lovely in its own way while it lasted - not formal, not manicured..but woodsy...

Certain plants flourished out there - waist high ferns, hostas, violets, lily of the valley, coleus, bleeding hearts, begonias, impatiens...if new plants showed up on their own and thrived, they were allowed to stay and then, alas along came gout weed! I have no idea whence it came...but it stayed and it conquered...

I fought the battle long and hard, but the gout weed won..The trees are long gone, the woodsy garden is a thing of the past, but the gout weed is still there and has invaded every inch of the garden. In response to the invasion, the ferns and violets have been fighting back with their own invasive manoeuvres, and while the hostas are still managing to hold the line along the borders, it is a battle.  But any new plants I try to introduce?  They don't stand a chance...they are under attack not just from the gout weed, but it seems, on all fronts! 

So what can I do? How do I save the lone allium from the ferns? The lavender from the gout weed? The lilies from the giant overhanging hostas that smother them? How do you tame the wild? 

It is hard to know where to start..so I did some serious thinking today and decided that to make myself feel better, I would do the one thing that provides the biggest bang for the buck.. I would do some edging to give the impression that I have things under control...It is amazing how a little edge to the garden can fool the eye..and make the garden look neat and tidy and tenderly cared for when it is not..... and pulling out a few weeds near that edge adds to the illusion.. 

Beyond that neat edge? Weeds rule. There is absolute chaos. But I will tackle that another day..with little forays into those wild areas..and I will win the war, one little victory at a time...