Flower garden Y8

Looking at garden from path you 

can't even see the left fence under 

all the Virginia Creeper 

Adjoining my veggie garden my parents have a flower garden in the Fenway Victory Gardens.  As we were doing some work on the garden this week, we realized that we couldn't remember what it used to look like.  So here goes a collage of the changes since they received the plot in August 2010.

Looking straight into the garden 

from the path you can see the rose 

bush to the right rear that has grown 

over the entire fence separating 

my parent's garden from my veggie garden

  At first glance you could see some mature hydrangeas and lots of invasive prickly vines.  The gate would also need replacing at some point.  The fence although leaning was still sound enough for now.

After removing the fence that joined our gardens, pulling away most of the Virginia Creeper and the invasive roses, and doing some much needed pruning we found a pond, a shed, a lilac bush, a weeping cypress, and discovered that the plot used to be a rock garden that had been covered up with plastic and then covered again with a thin layer of soil and planted with grass and a few shallow beds.  The azalea and hydrangeas were so shallowly planted that most of the roots were covered up just by the leaning rocks.

The shed had been in the rear left corner buried under vines. We moved it to the left fence for easy access.  Later we planted wildflowers on the roof but I don't have pics of the sweet little flowers that soaked up the sun in that spot.  This year I plan to add a new shed roof with a lip for a proper soil layer for the wildflowers.

 Removing the vines from the path fence opened up a bed below it for planting flowers.  And you can now see the pond to the left and the back fence.  We then built a makeshift patio out of rescued brick and put out a patio table.  We relocated the azalea from its rock bed to a deeper soil bed behind the pond.  We pruned the hydrangeas and cut down the grass so one could walk through the path.

Finally in November we emptied the existing pond and replaced the liner.  We now have a functional 18in deep pond.  Mom has planned water irises, mint in containers. rosemary and flowering thyme around the edge of the pond.  We also have a solar pump waiting to be installed.

Now the flower garden is still under its winter gloom but we have big plans....