If luck is 50% determination and 50% sweat equity, I am thinking that luck is something you have in plenty.

What I think is great about the space you have is that it has a lot of character to start. Retaining walls, different height levels of land, mature trees. You really can't ask for a better canvas to work with. Not much to hold you back except your imagination.

One thing I really envy is an outline. You see, I live on 10 acres. The back half is wooded, but when we purchased it, the front was damn near bare of life, and except for a slight grade upon which the house sits, quite flat. The neighboring property is a hay field. For me, the hardest part of gardening has been to define boundaries for the yard/garden. They eye wants to move off to the horizon, so often even very large and bold plantings get lost in all that open space. It has taken a long time for the treeline between us and the hayfield to grow enough to allow a visual separation.

Anyway, what kind of plantings are you planning? The curves you have added suggest a more casual garden (my personal preference) It will be great to see more photos come spring. Kay.

I'm reading up on companion plants right now. At first, this was going to be a cottage garden in the side and on the front of the house. I had planned neat little straight rows in the back yard for the veggies. Last year I tried that, and I really didn't get much aside from tomatoes and peppers. I don't like peppers that much, they were for a friend. I do love a good tomato and planted beefsteak. I didn't properly amend the soil so I had lots of plants and little tiny fruit. But they tasted great.

This year, I'm going to mix it up a bit. In the side yard, I already have knockout roses and some anise and cosmos. I plan to add some basil and a couple heirloom tomatoes there. I'm still selecting my seeds as trades come up. I'm also planning to use corn as a trellis for pole beans. I want squash, cukes, watermelon, some gourds for the birds, and of course, tons of perennials. I'm also busy propagating some shrubs that were lost in the woods. I've got Sweetshrub, forsythia, flowering quince, and a few crape myrtles in the chamber downstairs. I'm wintersowing a bunch of my flowers. I've done cuttings off nearly everything I bought this spring. One plant was all I could afford and I'm making do with the cuttings. It's a slow process, but I've got time.

When I first started this, my inclination was to level the entire backyard. Then I started thinking that maybe I should just work with what's there and shift small amounts of dirt around. I don't have any kids and only an indoor cat. I hate mowing grass, especially after I've watered and fed it to make it grow. I want to keep the front lawn, about 30 x40', but turn the rest into some sort of garden area. I'm looking at groundcovers now. Flowering is best.

And of course, I want to be able to supply myself with more than just flowers next summer. I want to eat the fruits of my labor.

My biggest challenge is a toss-up. It's either the soil or the neighbors. I want to make this a private little oasis. In the beginning, I got carried away with the pruning shears. It's privet, so it will regrow in a couple years, but until then, I have to look at the rental property with tenants who aren't really concerned about their yard.

The lady in the tan house behind me is nearly 80. She can't garden like she used to, but she loves that I'm going to be planting a bed of flowers for her to see. It was going to be a white garden, but I think now, a fragrant garden with color gives me more options.

I'm trained as an architect, but build models as a career, so most of my work is very linear and orthogonal. I like the curves. Nature is curved. The columns on the Greek temples are curved. I like the idea of walking through the yard and seeing things from different points of view. Plus, with all the ups and downs and ins and outs in this yard, trying to keep things in straight lines would drive me even more insane.

I've got a friend bugging me to start a blog. So there will definitely be more pictures. I love to share what I do and I come here as much for others' pictures as I do for the content.

Great ideas. A blog is a great idea and a motivation to keep track of your changing canvas. I wish now, 13 years later, that I had kept a better photo diary of the yard.

As a long time veggie gardener, I would like to try to discourage you from the corn and beans idea. Corn grows best in blocks or wide rows. This is due to how they pollinate - the male tassels drop their pollen or it gets blown off in wind and falls onto the female shoots. So planting in blocks rather than single file rows, gives you more and better corn.

Meanwhile, beans love-love-love the sun, so the only option for using corn as a trellis is to use only outer, south and west facing sides of your blocks or rows. And at that they might shade out the corn. For my trial, many years ago, both corn and beans just did poorly.

Also, pole beans will grow upward of 8 feet if they have the room. I think you will be happier if you build a trellis for the beans. Mine are simple - Cedar posts with 6' fencing between. I did not even cement them in. The fence and the beans are not heavy enough to need it.

Gee, I wish more people were interested in this gardening style. Actually, I am sure they are! They just don't know there is a name for it.

Ah well. Maybe we can talk it up in the other forums.

Kay.

THanks Kay. The only beans I plan to grow are butter beans and some other bush beans. I haven't found a vine bean that I like yet. I have decided after further reading to just let the cukes use the corn as a trellis. I did this accidentally last year. I also found out the hard way about planting corn single file. This year, I plan to put 5 seeds per 1' block with some nasturtium planted in between. The beans will be in the same bed, but on the south side. My dad grows a half acre of beans, so mine will be more for increasing nitrogen than consumption. Though I do expect to get enough for a "mess" for dinner one night.

I spend more time in the cottage forum than here. But then again, cottage gardens were started as potagers. Today, they're more about flowers than food.

I love the nice rounded flowing lines. So pretty!

What does wintersow mean?