big dreams

I always wanted to be a landscape designer. The summer after college I moved home to my mom’s house, and, armed with my anthropology degree, zero knowledge of gardening and a suspicion that I should have studied horticulture, I proceeded to dig up all the grass around her house and transform every possible spot into a garden bed. Then I moved away, leaving her with the task of weeding and maintaining all the new plants. To this day, every time I’m home I have to devote a significant portion of my visit to garden work, unless, of course, it’s December. Then it’s just snow shoveling.

Now, finally, I have my own garden to play around in. The problem is I’m still as over-ambitious as I was after college, only now with way too many other things to do. Spring really sprang last weekend, and Dave and I spent a lot of time in the yard trying to figure out what we want to do with it. It was the first warm and sunny weekend in months (probably 65 or 70º! Sorry, midwesterners…) and everybody seemed to have the same idea. We wandered around, took measurements, talked about our long-term goals (yes, new Monaluna studio!!) and dreamed. Finally, we sketched up our ideas and drew out an amateur garden plan. Here’s what we have in mind:

It’s pretty ambitious, especially since we’re hoping to do it all ourselves (of course). And here’s what our garden looks like now:

Yeah. We have a really, really long way to go. Ah, well – it’s the journey, right?