Our favorite gardening assignment received a visit from us yesterday. Ms Preston Road is subscribed to receive “our touch” three days a week from now through December 31.
Our lovely neighbor is not herself a gardener, but she has been generous to trust us to do our magic at her place. It is our smallest property, but she lives on a large corner surrounded by a very large common ground area. Upkeep there is the community associations responsibility. Because the area is wide open, with one very tall overhanging large leafed tree her garden bed is very affected by the wind. The property bed in the front and over to the side, is not protected in any way from debris, leaves, branches and larger limbs falling down. Everything blows into this area. Consequently even though her bed is not huge she likes for us to keep up on all the falling debris. It’s sadly a fairly front and center, neglected area in terms of maintenance. We continually encourage our community maintenance crews, by assisting them in keeping the area in good shape.
Yesterday was our first visit for the season to provide maintenance. Her plants are green and still growing in, but as far as we could tell everything but one pink flowering Columbine plant has returned. Again plants are just coming in, but with all the rain we have had this week, and the promise of sunny days next week, we suspect her plant life will begin its growing transition very quickly.
This is a simple property, but she has been generous to allow us to select and plant some very lovely “perennials” in her bed. She’s a ton of shade so selection has been to establish things that’s tolerate at least 6 hours of shade each day. At this point she has about $650 in well established plants. In fact, each year they have gotten better and better. And generally we add one or two new perennials each season.
The great thing about her garden is it’s completely weed free. This is because she has us for “maintenance” but she also calls us at least 5 times per spring/summer/fall to come and complete “light work” in the bed beyond our maintenance which covers watering, weeding and leaf blowing tidy for the porch, sidewalks and immediate grassy area surrounding her spot.
Today we are rained out, but come Thursday and Saturday she will receive our maintenance visit per her established agreement with us.
It is well to note that seasonally we select a few annuals to provide colorful blossoms that are long lasting and provide a boost of color, especially in the hot summer months when some of her perennials loose their vibrant color from our very hot summer months in Virginia. Our goal is to keep the bed looking fresh and inviting to the eye…. street side. It’s “curb appeal” and passers-by are always complimentary of her lovely but simple property. Folks often walk up to the property to check out her plantings.
“Contessa” says….. it’s a very good thing!
THE GARDEN CONTESSA🪴