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Here's a picture of the front yard taken before the project broke ground. Pretty much nothing here but a temporary path I installed to keep us from sinking into the mud between the front door and the sidewalk.
I had conceived of a front yard that used classical design motives and more formal structures, yet allowed my plant collecting fancies to show through. I stayed with repetitions and variations of the classic "circle within a square" motif employing formal materials such as brick and mortar and terra-cotta pots. The used brick wall served both to level the grade for a more formal design and add something old to our all-too-new house. The bricks were salvaged from a demolition of a wall built ca. 1920. Using the same brick materials, we constructed the walkway to the house and two circles which are hard to see in this picture. The circle in front of our house has an open center and serves to frame a Hamamelis mollis 'Pallida'. A repeated and larger circle was placed in the front yard of the rental property to unify the gardens and provide a front patio for the tenants. The brick wall has four pillars meant for pots or finials. I have chosen to continue with the circle-within-a-square motif with the addition of large round pots planted with bay. However, I decided to put my own stamp on this traditional formal design element by planting one pot with the true bay of classical gardens (Laurus nobilis) and the other with California Bay (Umbellularia californica). I am also intending to let these return to a more natural shape instead of the pruned standards required in classical gardens.
In fine Wallingford style, I have converted the parking strip to a potager. This will provide fresh vegetables year-round. The vegetable garden is watered on a drip system hooked into the main irrigation system with seven individual zones around the property. For you skeptics living outside the wet northwest, our copious rainfall is seasonal -- drowning us in winter and drying up abruptly in summer when it's needed most.
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