Unfortunately, the road is the main feature of my front yard. With all the hilly acreage, it appears that they shoved some dirt level and put the house there, pretty darn close to the road.
The road is gravel, very dusty unless a rain has made it muddy. There is a chain link fence, inexpertly installed. Okay, it's rickety, but it affords some feeling of protection from country traffic.
Racing by are a succession of farm trucks with round hay bales impaled on spikes, big trucks hauling cattle trailers, grain semis, big pickups, dump trucks and just plain cars.
At a slower pace come giant tractors with enormous discs or other scary implements, propane trucks and combines. Sometimes, the combines are in a convoy of three, with grain haulers bringing up the rear. The farmers all wave as they drive by. Some even slow down.
It's so peaceful and quiet here in the country.
When I first moved here, I invisioned a darling cottage garden in the shallow front yard. That was before I tried working out in the choking dust and before struggling with the fierce grasses.
A Botanical Solution
What I needed was a luxuriant hedge. Lilacs would be perfect, leafy and full of fragrant blooms in springtime. Out back was a huge specimen, with abundant sucker growth. I dug up some starts, placed them every six feet along the inside of the fence and waited for them to become a thick barrier.
Four years later, I am still waiting. What I failed to take into account was how long it may have taken the original lilac to get to its present twelve foot height. What I learned, a little late, is that it's an old-fashioned lilac, which grows slowly. In the side yard is a faster-growing French lilac, unsuitable because it only gets four feet high. Height is desirable so I won't feel that passers-by are reading over my shoulder as I sit in the house.
The fence lilacs have made some growth, increasing their stems and even blooming last spring. They resembled little cemetary bouquets. The six-foot spacing appeared wildly optimistic, miles between the two-foot tall plants.
Watch My Dust
This year, I plan to do more than apologize to the lilacs for letting the grasses invade them, failing to water them during dry spells and cutting down the new starts accidentally with the weed whacker.
My online research has turned up some grass herbicides that leave no residue. So far, I haven't been able to use weed killers around the lilacs for fear of wiping out the planting entirely.
While I'm at it, I'll use some of the grass poison along the fence between the lilacs. Tall sunflowers will go there and some other flowers that will screen the billowing dust. Soon, I'll be well on my way to having that dear cottage garden of my dreams.
The only drawback to my plan is that the herbicide is rather expensive. Maybe I can sell one of my naughty cats.
