Lay of the land

It is my way to go a bit slowly to start; we have only been in the house since the middle of Feb 2008, which as of today is 5.5 months. I'm starting to see what grows where, when things bloom, how long the blooms last, what I like, what I don't like, etc. There is a difference between marginal gardening and indigenous gardening; I tend toward both, but we are starting to add some ornamental flowers in the back of the house at random.

I also choose to say that nothing is a weed; there are things I prefer and things I don't, that grow naturally. Many of these things have more to do with placement than existence. Things grow here such that making a marginal garden is more like taking a marble slab and chiseling away the parts I don't want, than like adding things I do want.

For instance, there is a lot of area with reddish heather with small pink flowers, that blends to a greenish tone and fades into moss or fern areas. This is fantastic and unusual ground cover; I love it but I need it in some different places. The trick is, maybe it just never made it over to grow in the areas that I want it in, but maybe it didn't grow there because the light is too dark/bright or the soil is a little wrong in those areas. I don't know. I can only try. There is some of that stuff growing a bit where I do want it; I think if I start to clear a space around it and give it some water and tend to it, it will spread. I'm thinking of digging some up and moving it where I want as well.

The marginal garden needs design and large areas of texture, using things that don't need a lot of tending, to be successful at being marginal. I also have to really like it there, or it doesn't qualify as a garden. So, I am going slow and learning what I have here, and to become conversant with the lay of the land.