Dear Red Lantern and anyone else interested,
I'm sorry this has to be so long, and I am too tired now to cut it up into pieces. If you are interested, just read a bit at a time.
Red Lantern, you envisioned a lovely place, but it's not quite like ours. :-)
I'll reply to your surmises. Your post is very well written. At the same time
I'll correct the relatively few errors in your post, and I hope you won't mind that I made it into a lesson as well.
Red Lantern: "From your words, I imagine that you live in a villa in Canada."
Mary: That sounds charming, dear Red Lantern. However, I've never heard anyone
here in Canada call their home a villa. I think that word is usually reserved for some large Mediterranean or Slavic homes. Some other countries may have picked up the word, but it isn't used in Canada. I don't think our house is large enough, or fancy enough to qualify as a "villa" anywhere.
Red Lantern: "There is a dooryard in front of your villa and a backyard behind
it. Or more likely, a large garden around your house. The dooryard is enclosed
by a fence. In the middle there is a stone path on both sides of which is tidy grass decorated with many kinds of flowers, such as daffodils, tulips, magnolias,
lilacs, lilies and so on. Maybe there is a stone table and several chairs in the yard. On a summer night you can sit there to chat with your husband, and in the winter noons you maybe sit there to enjoy the sunshine."
Mary: The first thing I noticed above, is that you think the weather is much milder here than it is. We have long months of cold weather and a lot of snow in
the winter. The snow makes anything look beautiful, but it isn't possible to sit out to enjoy it. We do sit out on summer nights, particularly if there aren't any mosquitoes around. Since it's dry here, often that's the case. However
,
we prefer to sit up on a balcony in the evening. In the daytime in the summer we take lunches outside. Often breakfasts, too.
Our home is built on a mountain side and has a fine view of vineyards, homes, lake, mountains. Our property is about a half acre in size. It is carved into levels. Three levels are flat and there are three are steep hills between them, so our yards and gardens aren't quite as you visualized. We're on a quiet private lane. Our parking is on that level. That's the first flat level. In front of the parked cars is the first hill covered with meadow grasses, and five Russian Olive trees above the cars to screen them from view from above. Cars aren't pretty enough to want them to be seen. A big golden forsythia bush is presently
in bloom at the edge of the parking area where you walk up toward the steps. There is also the little apricot tree, and some old type of dark purple concord grapevines on supports, with three big rhubarb plants underneath them.
The next narrow and flat area above the parking area looks like a driveway, but
it isn't. This somewhat unkempt flat area won't be paved. We hope to build a short, wide drive into a garage for ourselves right down there. If we do it will have covered stairs inside or beside it to be able to reach the house level without snow or rain. It would also have a flat roof where people can sit to enjoy the view. The flat level would reach the level where the house entry is so it will become part of the front lawn area. The flat level now that looks like a drive would become a sunny vegetable garden that receives sunshine for most of the
day.
It isn't a vegetable garden yet, and looks like an unpaved driveway is because we allow our long time, and excellent neighbours and their visitors to drive across our property to get down to the lane, so they don't have to back down their own rather narrow driveway. They return the favour, as they allow us use their paved drive to reach the bottom of our steps to our house when we have heavy items to carry in. They also allow us to walk own their well shovelled driveway in
the winter. Sometimes they even shovel our steps They're appreciative, and so
are we.
The hillside that rises from the bottom of the steps to the flat area in front of the house is covered in coniferous bushes of several kinds. It is quite a steep wooden stairway with one landing where it turns toward the house. David and
Ben worked together and built it one year. It's a nice memory jogging gift now
that David's far away in China. There are wild violets growing beside it and some irises, and at the top is a small rose garden fulled with wild violets under
the bushes, and some bright and various coloured primroses I plant out every year after they bloomed indoors in the spring. On the other side of the steps are
two little beds of small flowering bushes, at the top is our huge Douglas Fir.
It towers over the house and will easily grow to 75 feet. Douglas Fir have a very fragrant smell. It's a pleasure to chew on a couple of fir needles. David and I both do that. Once he kept fir branches with their needles in his car just for their scent.
The fir tree's lowest branches are like a lady's full skirts that go right down
to the ground. We don't cut them because all sorts of creatures use the tree.
They nest in it, rest in it, hide in it, sing in it. The fir is also a goodprivacy barrier from our neighbours. Behind the fir, on the north side of the house is always the coolest place on a hot summer afternoon. Air flows up or down
the mountain, depending on the hour. On the hottest summer day that's the place to be, with you feet in a big old antique zinc wash-tub of cool water. What could be nicer than sitting there reading?
You are right, and there should be a curving stone walkway from the top of the steps, across the flat front lawn to the front of the house. But there isn't. At least not yet. There's the rose garden on the front edge of the lawn. It has
a curving edge that ends with a bush that bears many tiny white panicles of flowers, a Bridal Wreath Spirea. We have a nice thick green lawn across in front of the house. At the far side our other neighbours there have cultivated a tall
well trimmed cedar hedge. That gives us lots of privacy. Beside the house on that side are four or five aspen trees we brought from a forest. Their leaves make a wonderful rustling sound and the leaves seem to twinkle in the sun. You have aspens in China. I read about them.
A path never seems to form across the front lawn grass to the front door because
the grass is thick and strong and so so far we manage quite well without the stone walkway. We just walk across in front of the garden against the house. Our house has always been a work in progress, and as long as we own it I think it always will be. You are right about the chairs and table. But they aren't stone.
Stone would not be moveable. We like to move our outdoor furniture around according need such as where the sun is shining best, or where the shade is. So we have light weight plastic or metal outdoor tables and chairs. This year one of my goals is to refresh some of them with a newly developed plastic paint that adhere's firmly to plastic.
Our house and why it is unusual: it looks much smaller and simpler from the outside than you find it to be inside. Most people design their houses to look as large, elegant and posh as they can. We didn't. It isn't our way. We designed
it for ourselves, according to our particular wishes and dreams for the future,
and included design elements we had specially enjoyed in any other place we'd lived. Part of the design of the fieldstone fireplace was taken from the historic old house David used to own in Ontario, and part from a French Canadian fieldstone fireplace at a Baha'i Summer School in Quebec where we used to go when we
lived in Ontario. We took the corner windows and their height from the floor from a duplex we once lived in. After we finished the design we had working plans
drawn by a designer. Some people become confused and get a bit lost in our house because it isn't like standard plans they're used to. It functions exactly as we hoped it would.
Ben was once a building contractor, so he contracted out some of the work and he
, the children and I worked on whatever we could as it was being built. We kept
costs down and put in extra insulation and other simple things. It's over 30 years old now. Over the years it has been adjusted a little this way and that as
needed until it has its present form. We still have plans for further development, for instance the garage. The house seems to get mellower every day. Lots
of good things have happened here. Lots of good people, some very remarkable people have visited, or stayed with us. We have sometimes been able to offer a sheltering roof to a family or individual for a little while till t All this makes
for an interesting dwelling. Things from our past experiences, things we've made, all our furniture bought over the years fit in where they belong best. It's
their family home from our kids point of view, because they
all grew up here and have many memories. I try to develop mysterious little corners with things in them that will make the place romantic and a bit mysterious to children. That's for the grandchildren's imaginations and memories to flourish.
Developing our house into this kind of a place is one of my joys in life. It's
sort of like another piece of my art. My artwork hangs on many of the walls. I
think I'll gradually get rid of many of my live houseplants and replace with silk plants and flowers which will help to make life simpler, especially when we go
away for awhile.
I don't feel like describing the house. It's built of plain wood. Looks very simple. It is on two floors on three sides. On the fourth side there is only one level. We have two balconies. When one is sunny the other has shade.
We have one big sunny room we call our library and all the walls are lined with
bookcases filled with books on many subjects. There are books in every room in
the house. We don't have a living room. The "family room" has the fieldstone fireplace. The stones were gathered around here. An old French-Canadian stonemason
built it for us. We have a big family sized dining room that used to be two of
the children's bedrooms and a hall. We took out the walls and made it all one.
In a window corner in the kitchen is a comfortable little couch that once belonged to my parents.
The magnolia out in front on the far edge of the front lawn is about 35 years old. We transplanted it here from our former home. It'ss a short, wide, graceful
tree with silvery bark and it loves it here and has flourished ever since we moved it. Large pink magnolia blossoms are just about to open. Each will be about
the size of a small woman's hand. Beside it in the corner nestled into the cedar hedge is a gnarled pine tree. It was supposed to be a bush but when we moved
it here from our former home it developed into a small tree. Now the magnolia looks like a little lady with her man beside her.
Red Lantern: "In the backyard, I think there are more trees, such as willows, hollies and so on. Oh yes, and I remember that there is an apricot tree in your garden. Now it should be in bloom. Additionally, I imagine that a pool is located
in an agreeable situation of your backyard. There grow water lilies and lotuses
and and some kinds of fish are swimming in the pool."
There isn't enough water on the hillside for willows. It isn't warm enough here
for hollies. I like hollies, but they grow better over by the coast, near the
city of Vancouver. We don't have any pools, neither for swimming in, nor for fish. The many trees, both small and big, on the back hill need to be strong ones
. That hill rises from the relatively narrow strip of grass in the back yard where the house is only one storey high. There are some easy chairs out there. Above the grass the hill is left quite wild. There aresome rough steps made from
short logs going up. Then there a few paths. Lilacs and a huge forsythia bush
live there. Also shiney leaved wild Oregon Grape bushes that have leave that look a lot like holly leaves. There are various kinds of wild flowers including one specially treasuraed here because it grows under open pine forests in
spring. It's called Arrow leaved balsam root and has large yellow heads like smaller sunflowers. There is a Saskatoon Bush, a lovely graceful wild one that has airy white flowers in spring. There are lots of wild roses and a couple of wild creosote bushes that are very unruly. Little wild canaries like to perch on
the very tops of them. There is a maple tree, a poplar tree, many young pines and firs and a couple of Russian Olives. Russian olives don't bear edible fruit.
They have long, narrow silvery leaves. Once we had a thief in the house. That's when we fenced all around the back area so that people aren't tempted to enter our property from there. We encourage native plants, herbs and flowers and trees because they can live on the dry back slope and don't need much water. This is a semi desert area and crops and plants need irrigation. We keep the upper
bank pretty wild for the sake of insects and wild creatures. It is important for them to have homes, too. Not just clipped lawns and flower beds that people
may like but are dangerous and lack food for wild creatures.
The flowers you read about are at the front of the house in a curving band near the house. Some are also over by the magnolia. There are green tulips about to redden and open. I started planting more kinds of perennial garden plant that will come up every year by themselves. Right now there are blooming purple,
cream and maroon pansies that made it through the winter. The rose bushes at the top of the steps need pruning. So do the grape vines. I have a lot of weeding to do out there in those garden beds, too.
Red Lantern: "In such a good situation, you can breath fragrance of flowers , watch the varied scenery, and enjoy good times during all seasons of the year. "
That's true in late spring, summer and early autumn. In middle and late fall, winter, springtime until May we don't sit outside at all. Too cold. Too much snow in winter. But it looks beautiful and always interesting through the windows
.
Dear Red Lantern, I hope you like this post.
Warm good wishes to you. I hope you will have a house and garden you love some
day.
Mary, writing from Canada
