Making my new Paradise Garden

BEFORE: My front yard before I started constructing and planting my new Paradise Garden.

Greetings! I'm excited to finally be able to show you my new Paradise Garden. I (and my long-suffering husband) have been hard at work constructing and planting this new garden area in my front yard.

As I wrote about in my last post, I became enamored of the idea of an Islamic-style paradise garden, filled with scented flowers and fruit trees, and decided to make an Iowa-style version of one in our front yard. It's not quite finished (as if a garden is ever "finished") but I'll show you the progress I have made so far:

(April 25th) I rented a sod-cutter and transported it home in our ancient pickup truck. But it was a different kind than I had gotten from the rental place several times before -- MUCH more difficult to control than the old kind. So my poor husband had to run it this time. Then he and I (and my son, who is now big enough to usefully bribe) moved the sod to its new home in one of the flower borders I eliminated from our back yard. Nothing wasted.

(April 27th) I had a neighbor with a front-end loader come and scoop out some of the soil from the front half, which was too high, and move it to the back left corner, which sloped down, in order to make the garden more level. I then used a shovel to excavate where the paths would be, moving that additional soil to the back corner as well.

(April 28) I had materials delivered: 150 paving stones, 80 bags of paver base sand, and lumber to build the pergola.

(April 30-May 4) I laid out the paving stones over the paver base material, working out the spacing. I also built a wooden retaining wall in the back corner to hold up the newly shored up level of soil. Additionally, I dug four post holes for the pergola at the back. This was a fair amount of physical work, I must admit....

(May 6) My long-suffering husband leveled the paving stones, re-laying them over leveling sand. He and I then built the basic frame of the pergola. It's a small, light one that I designed to hold lightweight climbing vines like clematis and sweet peas (no wisteria!), and to provide a bit of shade. 

(May 7) I could then begin to dig over and loosen the soil in each bed, sifting through to remove the many roots from the nasty runner grass that threatens to take over most of my garden beds. (I think being surrounded by paths instead of beds will make it easier to keep it out of this garden.) I then added leaf compost from our county landfill on top.

(May 8-19) Finally, I could begin the fun part: planting the new garden beds with all the colorful flowering and fragrant plants I had been dreaming about filling my Paradise Garden with!

And finally, the big reveal:

My new Paradise Garden!

I attached lattice panels to the pergola for more privacy and for vines to grow up, got a new wood bench, sewed a temporary cover for the pergola to provide shade until the vines grow up, and flanked the center entrance with potted annuals.

The orange tree that I've had in my sunroom for two years is covered in blossoms that smell
heavenly -- just like a Paradise Garden should smell.

A closeup of the pergola, with the temporary fabric cover. A clematis paniculata 
and a clematis 'Rooguchi' are growing on the near (south) posts, and a sweet pea 
on the right back post. 

I planted a lot of scented and colorful flowers in the beds, trying to mostly plant ones that have traditionally been used in Islamic gardens (although I've also used substitutions like clematis for non-hardy jasmine, and the like):

• a traditional fruit tree (potted) in the center of each bed: a fig, a pomegranate, an orange, and I'm still waiting to find an olive tree locally
• sixteen roses that I moved from other beds that I eliminated (four per bed)
• boxwoods I had elsewhere to mark the corners and provide something to look at in winter
• Asiatic lilies and scented orien-pet and oriental lilies
• poppies from another garden bed
• twenty dianthus 'Sweetness' I started from seed last year, five plants lining the outside edge of each bed
• a dozen lavender 'Ellagance Sky' plants, three plants lining the inside edge of each bed
• several dozen fragrant tuberoses that I divided from last year's bulbs
• scented daylilies: 'Persian Market,' 'Pardon Me,' 'Hyperion,' 'Pandora's Box' and 'Wayside King Royale'
• several short bearded irises that I had in other garden beds
• some wallflowers I started from seed last fall
• annuals such as fragrant stocks, snapdragons in Persian carpet colors red, magenta and orange, and orange-red marigolds
• dahlias: 'Jaipur' (a bright red bush-type), 'Bishop of Llandaff' (dark foliage and garnet-red flowers) and 'Karma Choc' (dark red flowers)

I still have yet to work on the fountain: getting a water pump and wiring it to bubble water out of the galvanized milk can into the sheep tank. I hope to accomplish that in the next week or two.

Meanwhile, my main job will be to keep everything watered until it's established. I'm really looking forward to seeing the plants grow and flower in brilliant colors and with lovely scents. And this fall I'll plant some spring bulbs like lily-flowering tulips and scented hyacinths.  

Hope your own garden projects are going well for you as we head into late spring. Thanks for reading! -Beth