Andalusia, Here I Come

LATER THIS MONTH, I’m heading to Spain for a week with a friend and a camera. This trip is a radically abbreviated version of a dream I’ve had for years: spending the entire winter in southern Europe. But ya gotta start somewhere.

I’m going first to Madrid, then taking the train south to Seville, Granada, and Cordoba. It’s mainly a vacation and not a press trip, and I’m thrilled about that (though I have to pay for it). Still, I’ll be researching historic gardens and taking lots of notes and pictures, because I just can’t help myself.

We’ll go to the Alhambra, of course, but it’s the intimate courtyard and patio gardens I hope will inspire me for my own backyard. No doubt I’ll be bummed I can’t grow orange trees and oleander here on Long Island, but I’m sure there’s much to learn from the structural elements of Spanish gardens, even in winter.

So far, even though the trip is only two weeks away, I’ve done little advance planning, and I’ve never been to that part of Spain before. So if anyone has suggestions for places to stay, eat, go, or see, please let ‘em rip in the comments, and gracias!

Photo: View of the Alhambra, from Nino H’s Flickr photostream

Walking and Stalking

UPDATE, April 2011: The photos that originally accompanied this post, which I took while looking over the moon gate of this cottage as described below, were accidentally deleted from my WordPress media library, along with the photos on several months’ worth of other posts from 2009. (Don’t ask.) I have been gradually restoring the bad posts, but in some cases, I can no longer retrieve the original photos to use in my fixes. This post is one example, so I’m using images from the Zillow listing of sold properties, because I want to preserve the post for reference. The cottage sold in September 2010 for $520,000.

THERE’S NOTHING ILLEGAL about taking pictures of other people’s houses, is there, and publishing them on a blog? What about courtyards, if you have to peek over the fence to get the shot? Well, let’s hope not, because today, on a brisk stroll around the neighborhood, I saw the charming, simple courtyard, above, and had a vision for my own front yard.

I found this corner property in the Maidstone Park area awfully inspiring. It’s a bit uber-cottagey for me, but I love the concept and the execution: a moon gate, an arbor, boxwoods, a shed with French doors, and a sunny brick dining patio. There’s no driveway, just a parking pad covered with pea gravel in front of the moon gate, big enough for one SUV.

It’s all going into the mental hopper as I continue my extended decision-making process regarding a place to park the car(s) and whether/what kind of gate and fence to have at the entry (to exclude deer, or simply to provide a sense of enclosure?)

My ultimate solution will be quite different from this one (I have no need for a dining table in front of the house when I have almost half an acre in back), but the symmetry of this scheme really appeals to my orderly side.

It’s a magazine cover if I ever saw one.

A Loose Schedule and a Tight Budget

Above: Eric Ernst, Tree Man of Montauk, thinning out my overgrown forest so I stand a chance of growing something other than ferns

I’M ALL OVER THE PLACE HERE. I still have so much to do pull this house and garden together, I’ve hit another impasse of indecision. So I’m planting daffodils. (Though everywhere I dig, I hit inch-thick wisteria vine, and spend more time pulling and cutting wisteria than digging holes for the bulbs.)

I’ve accomplished a lot in the four months since I bought this cottage in May. But I have so much further to go. Not knowing whether this is a long-term home or a flipper makes it that much harder to proceed. If I knew for sure it was the former, I would take my time and spend more freely. But if it’s going to be a flipper, I just want to get it done.

Perhaps I should buy the Zen mindset my friend is trying to sell me. “You’re here now,” she says. “When you decide you don’t want to be here anymore, you’ll go somewhere else.” Yeah, but how exactly do I proceed with my renovation on that basis?

This I know: as soon as possible, I’d like to feel “Oh, how charming” pulling into my driveway, instead of “Eeewwww. Ugh.” That driveway — broken asphalt studded with weeds — is part of the problem. As is the house itself, with its discolored cedar shingles. And a front yard more brown than green. What’s the opposite of curb appeal?

The deer fence and patio have fallen off the top of my priorities list. I’m thinking of letting the deer have one last winter of ravaging the evergreens and rhododendrons, and spending that money indoors instead, on a fireplace, new bathroom, new kitchen counter, and a paint job. I also need a whole new roof. I’m gathering quotes from tradespeople: two roofers so far, two bathroom contractors, and a housepainter.

In the meantime, I’ve been canvassing the nurseries for shrubs on sale. I’ve fallen for a viburnum tomentosa plicata, or doublefile viburnum, above, eight feet across and flaming red, at Spielberg’s in Amagansett (the picture shows it in spring). At 40% off, it’s under $100, plus another $100 to plant (it’s very heavy). Deer don’t like it, but it needs a good sunny spot, and those are still in short supply on my lot. I also want a river birch somewhere; I love the peeling bark and delicate leaves. And dogwoods.

The truth is, I’m not in that much of a rush. I keep reminding myself that this is not a HGTV project done in a weekend. It’s real life, on a loose schedule and a tight budget.

To Roundup or Not to Roundup?

OVERWHELMED AGAIN as I contemplate all that needs doing, landscape-wise, here at Green Half-Acre. In rough order of priority, this is what I hope to accomplish this fall/winter:

• Board fence and gate across the front of property (80 feet) to create a feeling of seclusion and perhaps block traffic noise  — which no longer bothers me a fraction as much as it did when I first moved here in May. (It’s true what my neighbors said: “You’ll get used to it.”) I’m allowed a fence 4 feet tall without a Town of East Hampton permit.
• Eight-foot-tall deer fencing around the other three sides of the property.
• Gravel parking court in front, outside the fence/gate, big enough for 2-3 cars.
• Removal of 4-5 large trees to allow for more sunlight and expanded gardening opportunities in backyard.

Last, possibly not until late winter/spring:

• Construction of a patio. I haven’t decided on size, shape, or material yet.

Then and only then will I begin planting. I’m inspired by an article in a recent special issue of Fine Gardening magazine, called Green Gardens, about preparing garden beds without tilling. You just (“just”) outline their proposed shapes and start heaping fallen leaves, manure, etc. Composting on the spot, as it were. It takes time but saves digging. I hope to outline and prepare some of these beds in late fall and start planting next spring.

When I feel overwhelmed, it helps to remember all I’ve done so far. Above, my overgrown backyard in May ’09, before a major clearing of the property. The more I remove, the better I like it.

Meanwhile, I’ve created a monster in my attempts to do away with the rampant wisteria that invades the entire property. It’s bad throughout, but I’m particularly bothered by one area near the driveway, below, that measures roughly 10’x40′. I spent several hours in June digging and pulling and cutting the roots of wisteria (intertwined with lily-of-the-valley, which made a lovely fragrant bed in May).

Wherever I cut, apparently, fresh new sprigs of wisteria have sprouted up. For every one, there are now ten. I’m at a complete loss what to do. This particular area will be part of my new gravel parking court, so a backhoe will be coming in to excavate and break up existing asphalt. That ought to go a long way toward eliminating the pesky wisteria.

But the situation is almost equally dire elsewhere on the property. Digging and pulling wisteria is a losing game, like trying to stop the ocean from making waves. To Roundup or not to Roundup? That is the question. Besides disliking the very idea, would it even work?

Boring Stuff

MAYBE SOME OF YOU HAVE NOTICED I’ve reduced my blogging schedule from daily (as if that was ever gonna be sustainable) to a few times a week. I’ve been occupied with such matters as:

• cleaning out my basement (still)
• painting a green rattan sofa white (Why does everything worth doing, like painting a rattan sofa, turn out to be either harder than it looks or more time-consuming than you think it’s going to be?)
• mulling over what to edge my driveway with — logs, railroad ties, steel, cobblestones, nothing — when I get around to having a driveway built
• considering what kind of material to use for a patio (flagstone, wood decking) when I get around to having a patio built
• paying bills that built up over two months of vacancy in Cobble Hill
• having house guests — better enjoy them now, I figure, they’re not going to come in January
• going to the beach:-)

I’m feeling very indecisive lately regarding my landscaping choices. Everyone who visits has different opinions. For instance, the old, misshapen, non-flowering cherry tree in the middle of the backyard. One friend says lose it. Another says prune it. A third says keep it. I say…I don’t know.

The roses of Sharon are blooming, weakly. They’re weed trees, essentially. I never knew how easily they sprout and how invasive they can be. The forsythia’s out of control too, to name another plant I always throught was ‘desirable,’ and took great pains to nurture along. Oh, and the wisteria’s back. It’s like something out of Sorcerer’s Apprentice, popping up again everywhere. A force of nature, like the ocean.

It’s August. Time to do nothing, I tell myself. Just to bide my time, until the landscapers’ calendars slow down and their prices get (hopefully) more reasonable. And I’ve made some decisions.

Deer count, last 24 hours: 4