I have lived in apartments. I have lived in basement apartments.  I have lived with roommates galore.  I have lived in an RV and in a mobile home.  I have lived in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, Ontario, British Columbia, Nunavut (then called the NWT), Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, New York, England...  Then in 1999 I came back to Eastern Ontario and one year later bought a place here in Belly Button County and I ain't never movin' again!  This is my first house and it is still quite a thrill to have a garden and no landlord.  It's a one-room schoolhouse built in 1887.  Small, just 600 squre feet.  It's been completely re-done inside with one large area downstairs and a loft with my office and bedroom.  There's a half acre of land.

The garden is two summers old, just a baby.  The first summer, I spent a lot of time looking and looking. 

I brought back 2 Blue Poppies from BC on my lap. They're fabulous in Victoria, notoriously hard in Ontario - wish me luck!

The second summer (2001) was the first major project .  I put in a fence with the help of a friend from Seattle to whom I offered a fabulous all-expenses-paid vacation in lovely Eastern Ontario in exchange for his help.  The fence is about 80 feet long, 7 feet tall.  And yes, the 6x6 posts really do go down 4 feet.  What a job!  Julian was here in May and it took the rest of the summer for me to finish painting both sides.  I'm putting birdhouses at the top of each post, each a different colour.  I planted Virginia creeper on the back for more privacy from the neighbours there. We built the fence about 15 feet in from the property line and there behind I've planted Colorado blue spruce.  In a few years it'll be completely private. Down the bottom, I enclosed a corner that was going to be my junk yard but it created such a nice space under the old, and unfortunately dying, maple that I think I might make it a place to sit and contemplate.  Except where will I put my junk now?

Stonework is next.  I've been collecting stones almost from the beginning.  This fall (2001) I laid some stepping stones going around the corner of the house down a little hill.  It looks more Japanese than I was intending and I screw my face up at it sometimes.  Do Japanese stepping stones go with a 19th century Ontario schoolhouse?  Oh well I guess it's gonna. I've planted moss and tiny blue iris.  Ferns will follow in the spring.  Next summer will see more stonework.  A walkway out to the driveway & a raised bed in front.  I'll begin a patio perhaps.

Anyway.  The garden's coming.  Slowly but surely.  If you were to visit now you wouldn't see anything spectacular. A garden is a great teacher, it goes its own speed.  You can't rush it. It grows on its own.  I sometimes think I'm lazy and procrastinate.  I can stare at the ceiling for hours and still haven't finished painting the bathroom that I started last year. It took me months to fix a dripping tap.  But if you line up all the stuff I've done it's not that bad.  And so what if half the bathroom is purple and half yellow.