In the spring of year four, I decided that it was time to stop limiting myself to the edges of the property and I introduced some beds to the middle. The yard looked so poor in the early spring because of the high percentage of undesirable grasses -- rough bluegrass, which is slow to come out: see the picture below.

With my trusty Round-up I sprayed an area of about 15 feet by 10 feet in an oblong shape. I put it in an area which seemed to feel right. I never worry about what I will put in the bed because my biggest problem is USUALLY lack of space. Sure enough, new plant material arrived including a perennial sunflower, butterfly weed, several varieties of yarrow and primroses. A friend of mine works in a greenhouse and is extremely adept at growing from seed. She gladly passed on several splendid selections.

Acquiring plants through plant exchanges and gifts from other gardeners has its downside. Plants from seed are great because they tend to be unique and non-invasive. Plants you get at plant sales are usually donated by gardeners and are usually the ones which spread too fast. You quickly start donating to plant sales yourself.

Along with the plants given to me by my seed growing friends, I made one of my rare trips to the nursery with a bundle of cash and bought some trees, shrubs and perennials. For someone who works in the field of horticulture and is used to getting material through plant exchange or the generosity of growers, I felt somewhat embarrassed to be buying plants...call me crazy. But it was about time I did visit the garden centres and it has been a hard habit to break....I doubt I ever will stop now!

The mid-summer of year four, I was quite proud of the garden. It was taking a very nice shape and the beds were starting to look after themselves.

I was boldly planting on the septic bed and decided it wouldn't be a problem as long as I stuck mostly to perennials. I did plant a pear tree in the middle of the yard and planted another pear elsewhere so that it would bear fruit. I got one pear the first year.

The fall of that year I was given a gift from the heavens when a perennial grower, late in the season, took me out to the back part of the growing operation and told me to help myself. Plants stretching as far as my eye could see were "extras" and were going to be thrown out. I had already made a new bed surrounding the pear tree for planting the following spring, but hastened to fill it with all these new perennials. I will be forever grateful to Valleybrook Gardens.

Many of the perennials I was not familiar with, many weren't labelled and many of them I wasn't able to plant. We had a very early winter that fall and gardening was impossible soon into November. I was able to find enough compost and my neighbour with the chickens generously allowed me to shovel out the chicken coop. I couldn't have been happier.

During this time the rose garden was slowly struggling to make itself into something. The boxwood hedge had suffered every winter and was set back every spring. My travels with my work was always taking me away during critical periods and I would return to find my roses chewed up by caterpillars. I was becoming increasingly inventive in ways to protect the roses and boxwood. I covered the roses with wormwood...hoping this MIGHT do something to fend off insects because wormwood is often used like mothballs. I planted garlic around every rose. I then buried the roses with compost which had been started in the spring using chopped up raspberry canes. The canes mixed with the fine compost was a great texture for protecting the roses. I placed evergreen boughs and twigs over the boxwood and buried the whole lot with maple leaves.