It all started with a maple tree...

Several years ago, I tried to tackle the front yard, with its straight lines, dried-up grass, and weedy patches. I bought a Japanese maple as a focal point of sorts. Bad move. It lived a short life, and I can't say for sure that it didn't suffer in its final days. It probably did. Its death, however, was a blessing in disguise. It was the wrong Japanese maple tree (I'm very picky about these things) in the wrong spot (I'm not picky enough about those things). But the end result was that I pretty much abandoned gardening. I mean, really, who wants to spend over a hundred dollars on a tree that doesn't even last a season?

But then I met our local landscape artisan. I'm serious. We have a landscape artisan in the neighbourhood. He's the one with the amazing garden. I was admiring his Japanese maple. It was exactly what I wanted. He told me where the Osakasuki thrives (medium sun/shade) and the best time to plant (when it's cool). And the next spring, he delivered one to our home.

So instead of tackling the front garden, we (hubby and daughter joined the team) thought we'd start with something more manageable, the very ugly side yard. The yard we walk through several times daily but pretty much forget to look at. I'd tried to beautify it before, but always ran into obstacles. When I tried grass, the moss grew. When I tried moss, the grass grew. When I tried periwinkle and sweet woodruff, they grew here and there but had to compete with moss and grass. A sumac planted itself there and looked pretty good for a while, but then the dog pruned it to the point where it was pretty much a stick jutting out from the soil. I couldn't win.

Here are the before pictures. Note the sumac stick (it's the tall, skinny, woody thing). The Japanese maple you see is still in the pot, waiting to be planted so that it can begin to do its job as inspiration to the green-thumb wannabes.