The Gulag Garden's Alter Ego

Recently I visited a friend living in Fort Bragg on California's beautiful Mendocino coast. One look at her front yard cottage flower garden and I was wildly in love with her bright lilac poppies, flourishing nasturtiums and dozens of Dianthus. Honestly, it was like Beatrix Potter's brightest daydream.

A frilly Poppy flanked by vivid blue Bachelor Buttons
Jo Beach carefully explained that her garden didn't just 'happen'. They built their own home so she had to form her garden from scratch. 'Scratch' involved a truck full of horse manure being carefully integrated into the ground, and the planting and nurturing of dozens & dozens of seeds and seedlings.

Blooms by the hundreds

I dream of having soil I can dig into without the use of a pickaxe. I dream of bushels of bright flowers, festooning over the ground in thick happy clumps! Oh well. My only chance - with my low energy levels - of getting such a garden is to move to a spot on the west coast where the sun doesn't broil my garden and the ground is a soft flower bed on which my plantings can wistfully slumper away.

My Dream Cottage Garden