Garden then and now

16 years ago

I was going through some old photos and found a bunch that I had taken in late winter or early spring 2001, shortly after moving into our house in December 2000 (and before I had a digital camera). When we moved in, this is what I was faced with:

Except for a few woody plants, I had no idea what was growing there and it drove me nuts that I couldn't touch it for several more months. I didn't really want a hillside garden but this was the biggest yard we saw of any house in our price range (plus it had a garage, which after 10 years of apartment and condo living and parking on the street was another must-have). When we bought the house I figured gardening on a hillside would be a challenge. It certainly was, and a lot of work to boot, but the results have been worth it.

Of course this isn't an entirely fair comparison because the "before" photo shows my garden before anything is growing, and the "after" photos show my garden at its peak in late summer. So here's a more direct comparison showing my back garden during the growing season over a period of several years, all from the same vantage point looking from the back of the house up the hill towards our garage.

The first photo shows the garden in early summer 2001, when most of the plants were those that had been planted by the previous owner and I had barely made any mark; the second photo is July 2002:

Third photo, July 2004; and finally the last photo, late summer 2009:

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Comments (6)

rosco_p
16 years ago
Johnnieb: Wonderful use of the space you were dealt with. You have a difficult situation but one which you appear to have under control. Thanks for posting the inspiring pictures of your piece of paradise.
JohnnieB
Original Author
16 years ago
Thank you! I'm not so sure about "control" though. The landscape timbers were installed at least 20 years ago and are starting to sag and rot. I will probably have to replace them within a couple of years, which I'm not looking forward to. I'm also having to deal with the japanese maple on the right, which has about quadrupled in size and it now shading out a lot of my sun-loving plants. To add insult to injury, it was planted (by a previous owner) with insufficient root room and gets blazing sun all day, so the leaves usually scorch by mid-summer and by late summer look pretty awful. But it does look nice in the spring--compare these two views of my garden in June (left) and August (right):
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brooklyngreg
16 years ago
Great Garden. DC is ideal for cold weather palms like trackys. You do not even have to cover them down there and they can grow tall enhancing your look a great deal or a shrubby palm like a sabal minor or needle palm. The skys the limit in DC. Are you south facing?
holly_bc
16 years ago
Wonderful photos Johnnie! Late Summer '09 is an inspiring photo - so lush and tropical. What a fabulous garden you've created. I don't know how I missed this post as I do pop in here fairly regularly. Thanks for showing us the garden changes over time. Photos taken from the same spot consistently do show the changes that are hard to see and recall.
I think I'd be saying ba-bye to the J. Maple. :-)
Carol love_the_yard (Zone 9A Jacksonville, FL)
16 years ago
johnnieb,

What is the name of the plant directly to the left of the Japanese Maple?

Thanks!
Carol
tropicalzone7
16 years ago
I think I can answer that if your talking about the one in the last pic. Im pretty sure its called a rice paper tree. I might be wrong though.
Oh and very nice yard! I really like the before and after pics. Lots of progress! Everything looks great and really tropical!