People just don’t appreciate worms the way they should. Worms are glorious creatures. And life as we know it would be very different without them. Darwin called them the “ploughs of the earth”, and some scientists believe that earthworms are responsible for much of the rich topsoil of the U.S. and the world.

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One day we were at the side of the house puzzling over what to do. We knew that we needed a drainage system, but we weren’t sure where to put it. We didn’t want to dig up the plantings we already had, and we knew that we shouldn’t plant on top of whatever system we installed because the roots would just clog the pipes. That’s when the small path we had created caught our attention. It was perfect. It already went from front to back and we wouldn’t have to worry about roots and dirt filling the piping. At that point it was just a small, one person wide, path, which was proving to be unsuitable anyway, so we set to work on designing something better.

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Eight barrels, all hooked together, attached to the downspout of the gutter which runs from the roof of the back deck. A drip hose running out into the garden. That was the plan. Sounds simple enough.

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It’s amazing, really, how well art fits in a garden. And not just certain kinds of art, but all sorts of things work really well in the garden.

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A garden is art. You’re blending color, shape, texture. You create illusions that trick the eye into following a certain line. A garden is art. And every aspect of a property needs to be examined for a fully successful garden.

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And, before we could plant anything, we had to amend the soil. Our neighbors didn’t know what was going on when we filled the entire front yard with buckwheat. For nitrogen. When it would get mature, which it did rather quickly, we tilled it under and planted more. 4 times. It made a difference. Plus, since I have a pickup truck, we bought load after load of mulch. Twice a year, our city gives it away. As much as you want. Since we had the front and back yard to do, we got tons of it. We still do from time to time. Soil amendment will be a post all to itself (eventually).

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Back to the books. This time it was books about planning gardens. Graphs. Maps. Color wheels and color charts. And you know what? I’m glad it turned out that way. This is our garden now. We designed it, we built it, we planted it. It’s ours. We’ve made a few mistakes. Okay, we’ve made a LOT of mistakes. We’ve gone through several ideas that were great ideas but just didn’t work. But that just made it even more “our” garden.

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It’s been my experience that, except for weekly mowing and the occasional barbeque, backyards are the sole province of dogs. We never see anyone using their yards. Even those that have swing sets only have children in them when the children have company (and only then for an hour or so). It seems like a waste.

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The first (and biggest) problem was that it was hard as a rock. Literally. The first time we used a roto tiller in the front yard, the tiller bounced. The blades couldn’t get into the soil, so the tiller just bounced up and down. What I thought was going to take a few hours of work (look at it! It’s a small front yard!), took three days. Three very long hard days. It was the beginning of what has come to be a continual drive to amend the soil.

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Welcome to “A Garden in the City”. In the coming months, this blog will deal with all things that connect “urban” and “gardening”. Look for pictures of local gardens, articles about plants (lots of plants), pests and diseases, and the joys of having a small patch of green in a busy city. We hope to have interviews with gardeners, columnists and horticulturists. And we may even wax esoteric from time to time about the many joys (and headaches) of having a small haven that offers peace, serenity, distraction and beauty.

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