Flower Bed at our Driveway
Curb Appeal
When Norma and I bought our property here in Port Maitland, we had a vision for the yard around the house, as well as the design of the home itself. Architect Bob Chipman made the house part quite easy as he was wonderful to work with in the planning and construction of the house, but the yard was something that we took on ourselves, except for the berms that protect the home location that Bob rightly insisted on.
Knowing that the house was situated back from the road, where the historic home, long gone, had been right up by the road, we wanted to honour the connection of the property to the street by creating what landscape folks like my grandmother would term “curb appeal”. That is, a connection between the home and its surroundings. Over the 21 years we’ve lived here, we’ve worked hard at keeping that connection and with help from Graham Benvie, our wonderful gardener friend, we put a lot of effort this year into the top beds, near the road and which frame our driveway.
The beds have many daffodils and other spring flowers the deer don’t like and then transition with the rose bushes and then later summer flowers and fall shrubbery. We’ve tried to have apple trees, but the wind tunnel that is our driveway was too much for them, so we have crab apples instead, and even so we’ve had to brace one or two of them against the ever-present wind.
The property is so special for us, as it’s been owned off and on by family members for almost 250 years. We hope to keep the historic spirit of the place alive and add in our own touches.
An ongoing project!
