Paths: The beginning of a garden

– Posted in: Design
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I’m so psyched! Rundy finally started mowing a trail through the secret garden with the DR Brush Mower. It has been my dream for years to have walking trails through our acreage and it’s finally coming true. Ever since I walked the paths in my Grandma LaFemina’s Long Island yard, and followed my Uncle Jimmy along a path through the woods near his house, I have been drawn to paths or trails leading off into the quasi-unknown. When we first moved here, I struggled to understand what I wanted my garden to be–what garden meant to me, psychologically. It wasn’t until I read “North by North Hill” by Wayne Winterrowd in an issue of Horticulture that I realized I needed to have paths in order to truly have a garden. Technically, the secret garden is the wild area somewhat close to the house, and once you get up to the top of the field it becomes “the woods.” The paths connect both places and enable one to get a good walk in without ever leaving the property. (Our land is about 250 feet wide by half a mile back and all uphill.)

About the Author

Kathy Purdy is a colchicum evangelist, converting unsuspecting gardeners into colchicophiles. She gardens in rural upstate NY, which used to be USDA Hardiness Zone 4 but is now Zone 5. Kathy’s been writing since 4th grade, gardening since high school, and blogging since 2002. Find her on Instagram as kopurdy.

If winter is slumber and spring is birth, and summer is life, then autumn rounds out to be reflection. It’s a time of year when the leaves are down and the harvest is in and the perennials are gone. Mother Earth just closed up the drapes on another year and it’s time to reflect on what’s come before.

~Mitchell Burgess in Northern Exposure

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