Lawn to garden.

As some of you know, I'm not much on mowing. I know some people love it. Nothing like walking around sweating behind a loud, little machine while you get coated in tiny bits of grass knowing that in the end you will have shorter grass. Nah. Not my bag. I've been threatening to do this since last fall but it is now underway.

We are converting our front yard into a cottage garden. A cottage garden is, in actual fact, a romantic fiction invented about 200

years ago that idealized the happy peasant toiling in the earth who was able to produce everything that they needed from their surrounding fields and gardens. People--who were not peasants--imagined a green space surrounding the house filled with decorative plants, minor food crops, and medicinal/culinary herbs all planted in a nearly random jumble. The end effect being something like those opening scenes from the Lord of the Rings movies with Gandolf riding though the Shire. I will soon begin posting pics of the process but to date, I have converted about 60% of the yard into flower beds. Because I didn't begin work on this project last year, I am attempting to create beds and kill lawn at the same time. This mandates that the beds begin somewhat sparse due to my having to use lots of grass/weed barrier and mulch. Over time, however, I will begin to fill them in until they reach a critical mass.