Before and After: Marking 10 years here

A decade ago - before the makeover
Ten years ago today we moved here to a very unkempt 10 acres with no gardens to speak of. A silo marked the location where a barn used to be. Foundation rocks and rusted metal bits were strewn at its foot and hidden by tall grass and thistles.

These pictures show before and after scenes of just that one area, which we now call the orchard because of the crab apple trees we planted there.

I remember well sowing the grass seed with a broadcast spreader meant for fertilizer. It was in the fall after the bulldozer man had done his work. Like so many of the seasons over the past decade, it was a drought year, and the seed didn't germinate until it finally rained in December. Then the snow came. I despaired about ever seeing the grass come up.

Earlier this spring before the crabapple bloom
Last week, with the trees in their full glory
It's really gratifying to see the lawn I planted flourishing and those crab apple trees getting more lovely by the year. They were just four or five-feet tall and bare root when we planted them.

These days I marvel at the energy and imagination we had to create a garden like this. (We were kind of crazy in our enthusiasm. Our energy certainly isn't what it was 10 years ago.) Oh, the irony: the trees are getting more handsome as they age. But my husband and I? Well, we just look 10 years older. But, as my 80-year-old mother would say: Oh, stop it. You're still young.

© Yvonne Cunnington, Country Gardener