viernes, 20 de mayo de 2016

5 Years

Just five years ago this week, we moved into our new home in the country of rural LaMancha, full of plans for the future and garden dreams.

Move-in day, 2011
(Five years later, my boys don't even fit in this car anymore!)

We had bought the house lot several years earlier, which had been farmland and had not a single tree growing on it.  There was not a speck of shade to speak of.  As you can see, I had my work cut out for myself.

The lay of the land, before retaining walls and grading


Planning a garden from scratch is quite an undertaking, especially for a newbie.  After years of reading gardening books, magazines and blogs, it was finally time to put all my ideas into practice.


Many mistakes have been made, of course, such as thinking that fruit trees could grow in clay and hardpan under a brutal Spanish sun.  Not so.  There have also been other delightful surprises, like the fact that seemingly delicate antique and English roses work wonders here.  Who knew?!  Coming from New England, gardening with LaMancha's soil conditions and climate has been (and still is) a slow learning process.


Many new plants still need to fill in


A new terraced seating area and stone path around the Fraxinus rubra have been added.


A happy view from my kitchen window


The view from the front door


So, after five years, it is time to take stock of my garden's progress.  While many projects have not yet been begun, and several others have not yet been completed, I feel good about what has been accomplished, even though I know that much work still lies ahead.


Oh, the projects...


Let's sit for a while and ponder them, shall we?

7 comentarios:

  1. I was only thinking about you yesterday and wondering why you hadn't posted for a while. I really enjoyed seeing your garden and how it looked in the beginning.

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    1. Hello, Christina! Yes, this year life has been busy, so the blog had to take a back burner.

      I have also had fun pulling out old photos of the garden. It's nice to see how far things have come to focus on the progress and not the things I have not been able to do yet.

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  2. Hey Karin, what is five years in gardening? Nothing and also everything! You have achieved a heaven of shadow, Very good. Love to see the whole garden. Groetjes Hetty

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    1. Hetty, you are too kind! In these photos, the garden does seem to have a fair amount of shade, but I have to admit that I cheated: the photos were taken at 10am. Obviously, there will be more shade when the trees mature, but it seems to take so long! Maybe in another 5 years...

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  3. You've made great progress in 5 years despite the challenges, Karin! We moved into our current house and garden just over 5 years ago too and I can fully appreciate the frustrations of the learning process. Although there was a garden here when we moved in, a lot of the property was covered in lawn, the last of which finally came out last fall. I've been swapping lawn for drought-tolerant plants in stages but I also have years to go before things are fully fleshed out. I look forward to seeing more of your garden.

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    1. Kris, that is quite a compliment coming from you as I love your taste in gardening, although many plants you use would not survive our winters. I had no idea that you had made such a change in just 5 years yourself! I'll have to check out your older posts.

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  4. Hi Karen, what an amazing transformation. Lovely garden and house.

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