Deconstructing a Garden

Today, my son Dane and I headed over to the Yellow House to rip out a large vegetable and rose garden that has been providing beauty, joy and veggies for about 15 years.  In 1999 and 2000, I cleared a 72 x 24 foot lawn area and turned it into a vegetable garden.  I built a split rail fence.  I planted about 60 roses around the exterior of the fence and grew a lot of vegetables inside every year.  The kids were pretty much excluded from yard work except for mowing.  The rose show every year has been quite a sight to behold during June and July and many of them continuing on in to fall.  Some years I couldn't keep up very well with the pruning and weeding but most of the seasons I managed.  Two years ago, I moved out of the yellow house and thought I could keep up with that 2 acre property with its perennial gardens, 200+ roses, fruit trees, large berry patch, etc.  Last summer I broke my ankle over there falling out of a tree right at the beginning of a day I was meant to be pruning the roses around the vegetable garden.  The pruning never happened; I only managed to plant a few pumpkin plants.  (As an aside, they never got watered or weeded either and I got a huge and healthy crop!).  I made the decision last fall to tear out all the court yard gardens, which I did during October, and then to remove the aforementioned veggie/rose garden the following spring and let it revert back to lawn.  That work began today.  Actually, I can't believe all we accomplished in 5 1/2 hours!  I rent the property out now and all the gardens are under appreciated and largely ignored by tenants and I have found that maintaining two large properties is very difficult.  And, since I will probably sell the Yellow House down the road, I think a future buyer will be easier to find if there isn't so much yard work to scare them off.  Now, I would buy a property like this in a heart beat because I adore gardening and yard work, but I have found that most people aren't as invested in that much maintenance.  So I feel I am doing us all a favor.  Here is what the day looked like when we arrived and how it ended.

By the way, today was super warm and not a cloud in the sky.  You all know we have had a super hard and long winter this year and the snow has just barely melted but gosh was it a glorious day and spring is truly here.  Dane and I started by removing the 4 by 8s that surround the garden itself.  Then we removed the fence.  We had to cut back quite a few huge roses to reach the rails.  Then began the laborious task of cutting all 58-60 sharp and thorny roses to the ground.  Then the hauling of all the roses to a large trailer and 2 burn piles on the back of the property.  We hauled most by piling the cuttings on a tarp and then hand dragging the tarp back and forth to the piles.  Needless to say, we obtained many cuts on our arms, legs and faces.  And burned a lot of calories! We will return every day this week to dig out the roses with roots down to China until the area is totally clear and then I will plant grass seed.  Dan had conference calls all morning but after, he joined us and cut up a huge branch that had broken off one of the enormous maples during snow storms and could not be budged and then we helped him stack the logs on the old wood pile to dry out. He also trimmed other trees for me.  I am so grateful I had help today!  In years past I did this work alone and it was so nice to have strong, willing and cheerful help.

Piling cuttings on the tarp. 

Scotty and Emma (beloved daughter in law come out to observe our work).  And that neighbor still has some snow!

Dan with the chainsaw

Lunch break!  Apples, cheese, water.  

Done for today!

You can still see some of the rose stumps and the red bag held our lunch and water.  

 Dan stopped at Goody Coles (we jokingly call it Crappy Joes) for BBQ on his way home and brought dinner to the table.  We ate piles of meat and cornbread.  If you've never tried that place before (route 125 in Brentwood NH), please do - good food!!  Afterwards, we three had a little family night and watched the very old movie "Johnny Lingo" (Dane didn't know the story or what an 8 cow woman is!  Go to mormon channel or google it to watch - funny 25 minute film but a great lesson to it as well).  And then we chatted about marriage and relationships and answered all sorts of questions for Dane - fun time!  Wonderful, productive, lovely day.