Back Yard Gardening

Little did I think when we moved to this new home, about a year and a half ago, that one of our big pleasures would be, of all things, a back yard. Unless you're living in a high rise condo or an RV, I suppose you've long ago gotten used to having one.

But it's new to us. For the past 28 years our "back yard", if it can be dignified as such, was a sand and gravel pile and parking lot that mostly grew catbriers and trouble. Ann put her great talents to work on the front and on the trim around the house, and I managed to plow up a spot of scruffy weeds that passed for grass in order to plant enough day lily and daffodil bulbs so I'd never have to mow it again. It was, as beach houses go, a pretty attractive layout, but we were still short a real back yard.

Now we have one.

The deal when we moved in here is that the homeowners association would take care of maintaining the front and side yards while we'd have the back. Several of our neighbors, scarred veterans of years of suburban lawn upkeep, opted for a house with a mini back yard, and then went and spread a thick layer of pine straw over that. We, being subdivision newbies, took the road less traveled.

It's become a yard filled with as many bright colored flowers and green shrubs as Ann can find and I can plant, and we're getting ready to put into place a small wandering-walk along the edge of the yard. I push an old-fashioned reel-type mower around the small lawn, much to the entertainment of younger neighbors who have never seen such a strange contraption. While our back yard will never make the Garden Tour, it's our back yard.

Something else out there in the back yard, nestled in spots just out of reach of the squirrels, is a half-dozen bird feeders of different shapes and sizes. So we've had birds, lots of birds, and enjoy their daily visits: bluebirds and redbirds, upside down nut hatches, chickadees and cardinals, finches both purple and gold, hummingbirds, downy and red-bellied woodpeckers, jays and doves and others whose identities I haven't a clue. Along with an occasional visiting butterfly (which we used to call "flutter bys"), they're all fun to watch and enjoy.

Morning and evening we provide a diet of meal worms for the bluebirds, who come to their table when we whistle, and every other day or so we have to reload the other feeders with seeds. (Those miserable bluebirds, I regret to report, get their free meal here but nest and raise a family in a neighboring yard, the ingrates.) A small garden fountain that we bought at a downtown street fair gurgles with reasonably clean water to wet their whistles and songs.

As back yards go, I suppose, it's not much. But it's peaceful and quiet and green and ours, and we love our back yard garden.