Well, we're not that far from the beach, but our real problem is we're on acidic soil. Our lot has a lot of pine
trees and you know how it is - pine
tree land ain't grasslands, nor is it the kind of land where you do the blue hat society
flower beds.
It's a woodland really, and as long as I remember that, I don't get frustrated.
When I look at stuff the neighbours have - places where there aren't a lot of pines, that's when I get hanging my head . . . really it's just as pretty as anyone else's. It's just a different kind of pretty.
I'd say it's more green stuff than anything else -and yes container gardening does work out in some places on the lot.
We've had some failures - the corners of the lot sections for one thing - it doesn't matter if you dig down a foot and add some nice dark topsoil - the clay still comes up and turns it to nice grey cracked pieces.
I expect it would take me about 5 years to really cultivate the whole lot. Although Jeff has worked as super here since the end of '94, it's only in the past 3 years that I've worked on the gardening - before that, it was non-existent - it was just a place where Jeff cut the
weed/grass and raked the leaves. It was still a nice looking place, kinda' woodsy, just the same, but it certainly wasn't a garden.
There are places up along the fence where I can see someone has gardened a bit - I can tell by the way some of the old rocks that come up out of the soil are placed.
I don't know if I've got 5 years, but I figure what I do now adds to whatever the next gardener does - I'll be happy with that.