The Other Side of the Garden

Random plantings, wobbly stacks of old nursery pots, mystery pipes, and the general sort of garden mess not fit for Instagram

There’s a good third of our terrace that’s rarely been seen on this blog, and if that sounds sneaky it’s because it is. There’s nothing wrong with the space, necessarily, besides some large mysterious pipes that may or may not have murdered one of my dahlia plants. More on that later. The light is just fine, and exactly the same as it is on the rest of the terrace: afternoon shade on the apartment side and afternoon sun against the painted brick wall of the neighboring building. There is a fence that separates our terrace from another one, not particularly tall, but nothing that a clematis can’t help cover up. Or at least I’m hoping so.

There are also three small raised beds, the kinds that are probably made for terraces and balconies, complete with storage shelves at the bottom. And of course I cram watering cans and stacks of pots on them, which is maybe part of the problem and maybe the reason why that particular side of the terrace has become a garden supply catch-all for me. Behind the raised beds and by the ugly pipes I have a small pile of bamboo poles and sticks that I find on my walks (seriously, you never know when one might come in handy to prop up a plant during a windstorm!) along with a rolled up outdoor rug that was here when we moved in.

Raised beds, a storage bin, and Drew’s bike stand

I imagine that most gardens, large and small, have messy corners in them. Random piles behind the shed, collections of pots gathering dust, bags of compost and potting mix thrown wherever there’s room for them. In Portland we had a shed that we could throw everything into, and we did. The garden may have looked neat, but the shed never did.

When we moved to Brooklyn we did inherit a deck box, which I’m so glad is here, because if it weren’t I’d have to find room inside to store all our messy garden equipment and bags of dirt, and that would be a problem. But what happens to the stuff that doesn’t fit in the deck box? It gets thrown back behind the raised beds, apparently. I would love to be very neat and organized, but I never have been. Drew also has some bike things on the other side of the terrace, including a bike stand, but that’s it, and I do feel bad for taking over.

The banished blue pots and their bounties: strawberries in one, and a mix of verbena, sunflowers, and cleome in the other

And of course there are plants. There are these two large blue pots that were also here when we moved in, and one is filled with strawberries, and I’ve got the larger of the two planted up with verbena, sunflowers, and cleome. The idea is to get everything growing nice and tall, and then I’ll stick the whole pot in the back row in the good part of the garden with the rest of the plants. I really just don’t like royal blue. But if I put the pot in the back row now it will be shaded out, and I need these plants to do their thing and shoot up quickly and provide some interest just in case some of my annuals start to fade out.

Some sort of groundcover sedum, bush beans, and cosmos ‘Apricotta’

Also here when we moved in were these three raised beds, and really I should be making better use of them. I think my original plan was to have a sort of perennial border in them and put in plants that would grow tall and hide the pipes. As soon as I could dig in the soil in the spring I transplanted the agastache and aster and gaura that we’d brought with us from South Carolina. But then I ended up stealing them for the window boxes, where they could be appreciated more. So all the beds are very random, a little bare. One was already planted with achillea and lavender, so I kept those plants, even though both have seen better days, and then I also added an oregano plant.

I left the groundcover-y sedum that was already in one of the beds, though I really kind of want to get rid of it. It keeps spreading, and it’s not my favorite. Also in the bed is an extra cosmos that I had grown, a purple phlox that’s really taking its time, and some blue lace flower, arugula, Japanese onions, and bush beans I grew from seed.

The third of the raised beds has been a holding bed of sorts. I direct sowed some nigella and poppies and nasturtiums in it, and the nigella is still going and covered in seed pods. I’ll probably just let them dry and then collect all the seed for next year. I’m also growing some honesty from seeds I collected from my sister Lauren’s yard last year—I figured that if the plants survive the winter I can plant a few in containers in the spring. The bed doesn’t look great right now, so maybe I should just embrace it and sow some more biennials, maybe try to make some more plants for next year by sticking in hardwood perennial cuttings?

Mystery pipes, a little pot of lobelia, and a slowly climbing clematis

And the back corner—that problematic zone where the mystery pipes live. The pipes come from the apartment beneath us, and I don’t know what comes out of them. They’re noisy and they clang around, scaring our dog, and sometimes they emit mystery vapors. For some reason I thought it would be ok to stick a dahlia back there with them—lots of room, plus the sunlight’s good!—and the dahlia grew tall, and then all the leaves and new growth started twisting and puckering. Not good. I had to rip out the dahlia. But dahlias are sensitive. Maybe another plant would be ok back there? Or maybe it’s just a bad idea.

I took a chance and planted a ‘Sweet Virginia’ clematis in a pot, and I’ve been training it up the fence and then leftwards through the latticework so that it can provide some more privacy between terraces. It’s a kind of wild-looking clematis with tiny, white starlike flowers. More subdued than what I’d normally like in a clematis, maybe, but this particular variety seems fit for the job. Suitable for the light levels, and it should be able to put on enough growth to reach the other side of the fence. Plus, at the end of the growing season it can be pruned down almost to the ground, which makes it pretty renter-friendly and easy to move. I just hope it doesn’t mind mystery pipe vapors.

So there’s a tour of the hidden side of the garden. Definitely more function than form, although focusing on it so much really is making me want to give it a bit of a makeover next year. I just hung up a little pot of lobelia in a holder that came with an IKEA pot I bought earlier in the year, and I really like the idea of putting up more pots along the fence. I also have four of the holder/frames that came with our window boxes—I wonder if I could put coco liners in, and then span them across the fence? I did think about tackling it now, but I think I’ll leave it for next year. That way I can grow a bunch of window box style annuals from seed, so I can save money and be able to be picky about which plants to grow and in which colors. I do love a gardening project.

Garden Notes:

• NYC just had its third heatwave of the year, so I’ve been watering a lot, but so far the plants are still doing ok out on the terrace.

• Except for geranium ‘Roxanne,’ which developed some sort of bacterial blight—the leaf edges started to turn a dark brown/purple, and at first I thought it was kind of pretty, but then it was obvious something was wrong when the new buds began to dry up and the leaves began to wilt. So I ripped the plant out. Fingers crossed the scented geraniums are ok.