Julie R. Neidlinger: Lone Prairie Blog

Phoenix garden with bench.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

I've been busy working on a little surprise for mom, who is away all summer working as the "head cook" at a Bible camp, except for a day and a half on weekends.

A year ago we had a Father's Day storm which cut across North Dakota fast and furiously, causing great amounts of damage. I'll be re-running the post from that storm in a few days on the anniversary, but the point is, we're still cleaning up a bit from it.

Before the storm, our back yard used to be very shady with trees and a large fire pit/grill my grandpa had made. A couple of downed trees later, not so much. This little perennial garden is an attempt to make something ugly a place of enjoyment again, minus the shade trees and the now-smashed brick fire pit.

Using a potato fork, I dug up some perennials from parts of our flower beds that were doing well and could use a little thinning. I dug up clover from the ground near the water spigot. I also bought six perennial plants.

OK, so it doesn't look like much now; for a lot of work it doesn't appear to be much. Give it a year. And in two years, I can guarantee the ground covers of clover and phlox will be covering the black dirt and this will be a lovely low-maintenance garden complete with the world's heaviest concrete bench that required a call to the Cenex station in town for an extra set of arms (dad was strong, my girl arms were not) and the loader. I am trying to conceptualize and plan the making of a Phoenix bird sculpture out of scrap metal and copper to put on the post in the center of the garden, but knowing my slow state of getting such projects done, we'll see.

Phoenix garden: out of the uprooted and cut-up tree stump and weeds, a lovely garden rises. Mom will be thrilled when she comes home tomorrow and sees it - I know it.

You can take a video tour of our gardens over on my video blog.