Saturday, April 11, 2009

The Tale of a Garden Shed



When we bought this house umptyninth years ago, we acquired with it an 8x10 foot garden shed which we proceeded to abuse. It received anything and everything we threw in there, never complained, never gave any trouble, and dynasties of spiders grew old and fat and laid their eggs in peace among the old garden gloves and empty plastic pots. One day recently, I had the idea of removing the ivy from the back side so that the area could be cleared for my new solar clothes dryer. This was done, but unfortunately the removal of the ivy caused the whole wall on that side to disintegrate. Further investigation revealed that the shed was being held up only by the joint efforts of the ivy, the termites and the spiders, which were apparently joining hands to keep their ancestral home from falling down around their ears (or whatever spiders and termites have in place of ears).





So, a contractor was summoned. He put us in order, quickly and neatly, and asked only $1,000 for his work(!). The "new" shed is very neat, will be pretty when it is finally painted, but it does not have the je ne sais quoi of the old one. There is no picturesque covering of ivy, no suggestion of a Victorian "ruin", and gone are the piles of pots, old tools, mismatched garden clogs (how does one lose ONE garden clog, anyway?), and old candles and bug spray cans.

I have been working on the plantings--the ivy had done a lot of damage to the hydrangeas and the pieris, but they will recover now. It is too cold yet to paint outside, but the walls will stay the same beige, the trim of the door and walls will be a soft taupe, and the door will be the same cornflower blue as the house doors. A picture will be forthcoming when the painting is done, probably in May. Somehow though I know I will miss my romantic ivy-covered ruin.

7 comments:

Tatyana@MySecretGarden said...

Rosella, I think this is the whole new chapter in your gardening life! Garden shed is an every gardener's dream! I don't have one and I am jealous. I know you will use all your artistic talents and turn it to a shed of your dream! You have a place for storing, potting and many other things! I enjoyed reading this post, it made me laugh several times (the spider/termite/ants part). Thank you!
P.S. Something happened with Picks on Blotanical, they don't work!)

Pat said...

Thanks, Tatyana! And I know "picks" don't work because I tried several times yesterday. I don't think my comments are getting posted either--I will go check now and see if mine from yesterday made it through!

Anonymous said...

Hi Rosella~~ I am SO behind on my blog reading. A few months ago we razed our 15 year old playhouse. My son (all by himself with a little help) built it when he was was circa 12.

Your old shed sounds like it was pretty scary with critters. Our playhouse was a magnet for paper wasps. I thought they were fairly benign creatures and I suppose they are, until you accidentally lay your hand on one of their min-houses.

Anyway, your new shed looks delightful. I like your flagstone pathway. One thing that's kind of fun is to buy a used (cheap) wall mirror to hang on one of the outer shed walls. It's supposed to visually enlarge the area. I'll stop rambling now. :)

Jan said...

I love your tale, Rosella...despite the angst, you'll have good memories! I wish I could have a shed but we have a HOA and are limited as to what goes in our yard;-( I still love my home and yard though I can't stand the HOA! Our garage sounds like yours with the bug spray cans and mismatched shoes and gloves...amongst tons of other 'stuff' we seem to continously accumulate!! I am sure your new shed will be wonderful and ivy is a pain, anyway, so now you can put other plantings in.

Jan said...

PS You are now on my followers list and my sidebar. I lost everything I had on there before but am building it back up. It honestly slipped my mind that you are here in northern VA! The weather is getting great, isn't it? Even though it's been 'cool' out, it's just wonderful to have a little sun and see the plants popping up!

Pat said...

Hi, Jan! Yes, the weather is great now -- today has been "interesting", dont you think? Big fat black clouds, sudden short showers of rain, a little thunder here and there like pepper in the soup, and now cooler and windy.

And I am soooooo glad we don't have a HOA! This is a very old area, with lots of personality (which is a polite word for some eyesores) but I wouldn't change it!

Margaret Roach said...

Funny, I "fixed" one of my sheds, too, not long ago, and now I miss the funky old one so much, ,all covered as it was in vines like climbing hydrangea and such. Sigh. Progress? Sometimes it's a tricky thing.