I finally remembered to take some pictures of the back garden today. I’m not sure why I’ve had a mental block on the back garden for the last month. It’s actually been doing pretty well back there, in some ways better than the side garden. (The side garden is definitely suffering from all the rain we’ve gotten over the past week. Since it’s right underneath the gutterless side of the roof, quite a few plants have been knocked around, and there aren’t very many flowers at the moment.)
I can definitely see the advantage of container planting in this garden. It gives the appearance of being very lush because I can cram all the plants right up against each other, rather than give them some space like you need to when they’re in the ground.
The garden, and back yard in general, are now getting quite a bit more sun then they have for the past five years. My landlord came in a couple weeks back, and decided to “trim” the lilac bush:
Don’t get my wrong, the lilac needed some serious pruning, but this isn’t exactly what I had in mind. If it survives the winter, it can probably recover within a couple of years, but the poor thing is going to have a hard time of it. He also decided to “trim” the climbing roses in the side garden. It’s not nearly as bad, but I’m doubtful we’ll get any blooms next year.
In other interesting if you’re into that kind of thing news, there’s a garden spider living over the front of the back garden. I managed to catch her today as she was putting up supper:
Pretty interesting sight there. She’s been over those plants for at least a month, which has to be a record for spiders remaining in one place in our yard.