Sometimes gardening looks like painting and building

A friend said to me the other day that I’m so good about taking ‘before’ photos it makes her wish she’d been better about that when she was starting on her garden. I’ve been a blogger for decades, and am just generally a person who loves documenting things, so yes, I am good about thinking ahead to the future ‘after’ pics and snapping their befores. But as I replied: Befores are all I’ve got right now. I suppose some areas of this garden-in-progress have entered the ‘during’ phase, and happily that applies to the courtyard project, which is now well underway. The durings may not be much prettier, but they are pretty exciting.

April’s been a wild child around here — tell you more next week — but we have managed to make progress on the Infrastructure Month plan I laid out at the end of March—

THE RAISED BED

I deliberated quite a bit about the size and nature of this planter box for the back corner of the house, which is meant to separate the driveway (and trash bin area) from the garden and will provide some lush, green screening once planted. In a fantasy scenario where I could have anything I wanted, I’d have had a cor-ten steel planter made to the exact right size, which would have blended nicely with the brick. Unfortunately, I am on a budget. So then what?

As noted before, I intend to eventually jerry-rig a raised vegetable bed in the driveway adjacent to this spot — somehow moveable but appearing to be a simple wood bed on the asphalt — so it’s best for this one to match that. But rather than seasonal or temporary planting, this one will hold some sort of tree/shrub combo for the long term. So I needed a bed that would hold up to that and stand the test of time.

What I decided to do was buy a metal bed for its structure, durability and long-lastingness, treat it as a liner, and wrap it in a wood facade that can be easily replaced down the line when it needs it — without disturbing the contents of the bed. The best deal I could find in my size range was actually a steel Vego bed (at almost half price) that has double-layered walls for insulation and a dark brown finish, which I reasoned would disappear nicely once filled with dirt and plants. It turned out to be much nicer looking than I expected! We went ahead and made the wood facade for it anyway, given the above, but who knows — when that rots someday, I might just leave the steel bed on its own.

I thought I’d have it planted by now, but between company and illness and a circular debate in my head about the best contents, I haven’t rushed into anything.

THE PAINT JOB

For the garage, we settled on a Benjamin Moore color called Gloucester Sage, a dark grey-green that will disappear nicely into the garden, hopefully. We’re feeling our way into it: It’s easy enough for us to paint the siding, but the other surfaces and details present all sorts of complications (being variously vinyl, aluminum, perforated, flexible, etc). I desperately want it to be all one color and call no attention to itself, but for now we’re painting the walls and will see if I can live with the white trim. If not, maybe next year we’ll be able to hire help doing all the more tedious bits. If I do find the white trim annoyingly loud in the near term (which I will), it will still be a vast improvement not to have this glare-y white box in the scene. Even partially painted, it already looks so much better.

THE GRAVEL SITUATION

The gift of the surprisingly-adequate parking-lot gravel under the removed asphalt has simplified the ultimate leveling and pea graveling, but the landscaper friend who’ll be helping me with that is still a few weeks out from being available to do so. Still, I feel like we got to skip a step and are ahead of where I thought we’d be on this right now. And I can (and will) plant parts of the courtyard regardless, just as soon as the weather cooperates and we can finish the painting!