Woodsmith Farm

After years of abuse by a lot of dogs, I told TJ that I wanted to rip all of the bushes and flower beds out and start over because I was tired of our yard looking like a war zone.  Some of the landscaping had been recently dug up by our newest dog Lila. Some of the yard had tried, with only marginal success, to survive the countless paws and jaws that wreaked havoc on its roots and branches, and some parts were a result of me just giving up and basically ignoring that it needed some TLC.

So TJ chopped everything down and the process began.

We had the typical farm house with countless dogs lounging under the front porch at any given time.  But with an air conditioned/heated basement available 24/7, the porch acccess needed to go and we agreed to give hanging board and batten panels a try.  I think once the shockingly orangle (supposedly clear) sealer tones down, I will really like them.  During the porch work, we also replaced all of the 1.5"x12" oak steps as well as a few other boards that were starting to rot.

To discourage the dogs from digging under the skirting we decided we needed a stone border.  Since we have collected a large pile of rocks over the years, TJ came up with a stacked stone look, with the stones layed at an angle on each other.  There is some other stone work at the back of the house so I think it all ties together nicely.

My job was to come up with the plant purchases and layout.  After way too much pondering and no progress on what to do, I decided to drop a picture of the naked house off at Spring House Gardens in Lexington, KY.  I guess this a common occurance for them and one of their garden guys did some quick drawings on a piece of lined yellow notebook paper and that's what we went with. I'm not picky, I just wanted someone to tell me what to plant and where.  So with my truck full of plants and trees and an empty pocketbook, I felt reasonably good about how things were going to turn out.

Once I had a plan of some sort, I was able to tweak things a bit.  I was on the Henkel Denmark site admiring their beautiful work when I saw a great idea at a distillery they worked on.  Whiskey half barrels with boxwoods and some sort of annual flower, which I thought would be perfect for adding some color and in theory up high enough to discourage the dogs from digging in them.  I've always thought of Japanese Maples as pretty yuppy, but I ended up with one of those, as well as some Ottos, Nandinas, CatMint, Daylillies and what will hopefully be a pretty lavender Crepe Myrtle.  Once the terraces are completed on the left side of the house, plans are to plant some Oak Leaf Hydrangeas and a tree I can't remembe the name of.  I'm also looking into possibly a Boston Ivy terrace...one thing at a time though.

So after one day, the yard still looks great and Lila didn't eat anything.  It rained all day and the dogs were probably inside, so we will see how durable everything is as time passes.  At least it looked nice for a couple of days.

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