Rebirth of a garden

April 16, 2014 by Beth Shepherd

If you would have a lovely garden,
you should live a lovely life.
– Shaker saying

When I first saw the Urban Cabin the garden looked like this:

A few years later, and a couple things planted here and there, and the garden looked like this:

Then we remodeled, tore off the back of our house, moved the sewer line and dug up most of the yard, and put many of the plants in temporary beds. The garden looked like this:

Then, slowly, we started to re-imagine and rebuild, and put in 9 cubic yards of new soil and planter beds in the garden. It looked like this:

Eventually we also added a brick patio, wood chips and more plants…but then we had to take down our two 60-foot Poplar trees, grind out the stumps and roots and removed all the plants beneath them. And it looked like this:

Today, I spent most of the day in our garden. There are new trees, plants, fruit, herbs and flowers, growing everywhere. Rebirth! Our little 18 by 40 foot slice of paradise in the middle of the city. Now our garden at the Urban Cabin looks like this:

And in the front of our home, the parking strip looks like this:

Our garden, like many things in our lives, has been a long labor of love. There is a sign inside our house, given to us by a close friend: Love grows in small houses. And indeed it does. Both inside and out.

Take the road less traveled, Beth

Timber!

July 16, 2013 by Beth Shepherd

Of all the trees we could’ve hit, we had to get one that hits back.

~J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Alas, poor Poplars. We knew thee well. But last Friday: Timber! Down they both came. All sixty feet of them.

Thank you Ballard Tree Service for doing such an awesome job of removing two very tall trees from a very tight spot. We were amazed as we watched the crew shimmy up those trees–saws in hand, attach ropes and pulleys, and then carefully take our trees down foot by foot and inch by inch.

Garden metamorphasis: The end of an era at the Urban Cabin

July 9, 2013 by Beth Shepherd

A garden is always a series of losses set against a few triumphs,

like life itself.

– May Sarton, novelist and poet, 1912-1995

Faithful readers of my blog will remember that Big Papa and I fondly refer to our house as the Urban Cabin. And for good reason: our small, humble home was built in 1898.

When Big Papa and I first started dating, one of our early dates (date #3?) was an afternoon spent raking leaves, copious amounts of leaves from the two giant Poplar trees that a previous owner planted in the tiny back yard behind our house. This owner did not like looking at the imposing pink (yes, pink!) apartment building that borders the south end of the property, so she chose trees that would grow very quickly to camouflage the view, emphasis on very quickly. These two trees are now 60 feet tall.

Poplars are a poor choice for an urban lot for many reasons: they grow very tall; they have large, shallow and potentially invasive roots; they are prone to a host of diseases; and, they are rather short-lived (15 years on average). Our trees are now showing signs of all of these aforementioned problems and we decided it was time to take them down.

In addition to the Poplars, the right third of our 18 by 40-foot yard had three Greengage plum trees and one apple tree. If you do the math, you’ll arrive at the sum of six trees crammed into approximately 225 square feet of yard space. That’s a lot of trees for a little yard.

In the eight years since Big Papa and I first met, our yard has undergone an amazing metamorphosis. Together, we planted the shade section (where the trees are located): bleeding heart, hostas, ferns, hellebore and heuchera were tucked here and there to give this part of the yard a woodland appearance.

Then, after the remodel of the back of our house, we dug up the remaining two-thirds of the yard and redesigned it entirely to be a potager (kitchen) garden, with four planting beds, brick paths, a fence of espaliered apples, two herb beds and a birdbath ringed with thyme in the center of it all.

We enjoyed the (literal) fruits of our labor for four years, until this past weekend when we started a new project, one which will change our landscape in ways it hasn’t changed in at least a decade. Five of our six trees are coming down.

One of the three plum trees went first. It was difficult to see it go but it was growing in between the two 60-foot Poplars and if we didn’t take it down ourselves, it would come down with the big trees.

Next we took down the old apple tree. We’ve both bemoaned the poor job of pruning by previous owners. What little of the tree was still leafing out, hung over our fence into the neighbor’s yard, and its skeletal shape resembled a scarecrow more than an apple tree.

Big Papa and I spent the better part of an afternoon, chopping, sawing, and discarding. We filled our yard waste bin and two yard waste bags to their very brims. Smaller ground plants were transplanted into a temporary bed to await their new home when we rebuild that corner of our yard.

Around 6:00 in the evening we noticed the strangest thing: sunlight—SUNLIGHT—streaming in from the west side of our yard. Our “shade garden” was no longer in the shade. We both stood there and marveled at the sight.

On Friday, a tree company will come and take down the Poplar trees. On Saturday we’ll remove another sickly plum, which will leave only one of the six original trees, a Greengage plum.

In a few weeks, we’ll plant a new tree, a Stewertia, where the Poplars once stood. We’ll find different plants to fill in the gaps where the apple and pear trees were. And, once again, our garden will be transformed.

Take the road less traveled,

Beth

A little birdie told me

May 25, 2009 by Beth Shepherd

Last weekend we watched local family drama play out in our backyard. Three robin chicks were leaving the nest. The first thing that clued us in was all the commotion in the trees, tweeting, chirping, squawking and the flurry of wings. Soon, we spied two chicks in our plum tree. Shortly afterwards, we saw chick number three hopping around on the ground near our fence.

The chicks were impossibly cute, round little balls of speckled feathers, bits of fluff still hanging on. No necks to speak of, just a big yellow beak that periodically opened as wide as the Grand Canyon to accept worms, berries and grubs Mama and Papa stuffed down their hungry gullets.

One chick found his way to the fencepost and we caught him doing deep knee bends, squatting down and then up on his spindly bird legs, as if to say, “I’ll be darned, look how these things work.” For the most part they sat, in relative safety, under the cover of foliage on the trees, just taking it all in.

Mama and Papa robin, on the other hand were as hard working as any two birds with a family of fledglings could be, racing through the sky this way and that to find food for their youngins,’ while fending off the cadre of cackling crows. They would team up in a moment’s notice and dive bomb the crows to keep them at bay. We were both pretty impressed that Papa robin pulled equal weight in the “kitchen.” Each parent took turns keeping watch on the rooftops surrounding our yard as the other went in search of snacks.

Big Papa and I were tuckered out from the flurry of activity after a couple hours. Later in the day when we ventured back out to check on our little flock, we saw that two of the three chicks were gone, hopefully off to greener pastures. One of the three chicks was still nestled into the crook of a branch on our apple tree.

Mama and Papa robin continued to keep an eye on him and feed him, but we were a bit worried when he was still there the next morning. Special needs chick? Our neighbor thought he was the runt and that his failure to “fly the coop” didn’t bode well for his future. We kept our fingers crossed that he just needed a bit more time to get himself together.

Monday morning he was still in the tree. Big Papa managed to catch a glimpse of him during a test flight from the tree to a ledge on the nearby apartment building. A few hours later, he was back in the tree. Wings, legs, and feet all seemed intact and in working order. Maybe he just liked our little oasis and was reluctant to strike out on his own. When I returned later in the afternoon, he was gone. I guess he was just a late bloomer, something I understand. The plum tree seems a bit lonelier without him and our backyard is certainly quieter.

I think about our own brood of one, who we’ll bring to nest with us in the Urban Cabin. When he fledges, I’ll be on the verge of seventy. Right now, from where we sit, the distance from the branch to the ledge seems impossibly far away. It’s hard to imagine a kiddo running around the house, much less leaving the roost a couple decades down the road. Still, like our backyard buddies, that day will come when he stretches his wings and takes flight.