The Garden: 2000 (The Early Years)

In October of 1999, Anne suggested that I turn the narrow strip of crabgrass (an area about 3 x 24 feet) that separates the road from my parking lot into something a little more appealing. She thought a bed of daffodils would be just the thing. Stripping the sod was fairly easy, but I discovered that here as everywhere else in the yard the grass covered little more than gravel. Over a three-week period, I excavated the bed to a depth of about seven inches, screening the gravel as I went and putting the screened soil back in the hole. Thirty bags of topsoil replaced the volume lost by removing the gravel. We planted mostly yellow, some white, and a sprinkling of hyacinth on November 28.

On March 23, 2000 the first three blooms appeared! The first flowers I ever planted survived the winter and bloomed. On April 13, I removed 25 dead yellow daffodil blooms. At this time, some of the bulbs had not bloomed yet. On May 4, 2000: Removed all remaining dead daffodil blooms (73). In subsequent years, fewer daffodils reappeared in part because of the harsh roadside location and the use of salt during the winter. We moved to a different house in 2003 and haven't kept track of my first "garden."