A little explanation

     My wife, Dorothy, and I bought our one-acre property in 1969.  It is 150 feet wide and 300 feet deep, with a bit cut off on the back left.  We bought it mainly because there was a hill on it, and I knew that could make for more interesting landscape gardens.  Plus, it had a 20-acre woods behind.

     The first photo shows us, along with Dorothy's father, just before starting to build the house.  The next two photos show the house in 1970 and 1972.  Notice that the driveway does not go straight out to the road, as usual.  I curved the drive to the side of the lot for two reasons.  First, it would make for a wider lawn, making the lot appear wider.  Second, I thought the curved drive would make for a more pleasing entry.  After 47 years, my wife still is mad at me for doing that, as so many visitors have a hard time backing out.  Quite a few have driven off the pavement.  Too bad.

     The fieldstone terraces in the front were built in 2007.  I never liked the plain flat front lawn extending into the ditch.  A year earlier, I saw a photo of a very abstract design of a lawn somewhere in Europe.  It had three flat sections, rising at different rates, with the highest rising about 20 feet in total.  The most unusual thing is that they did the same thing in the opposite direction, but the three levels flipped (meaning that the fastest rising one became the slowest rising one).  Somehow, in trying to emulate it, I came up with the design of terrace levels with intersecting curves. Not the same, but a bit different, nevertheless.  My (ordinary) neighbor said I should have built an "ordinary" terrace.  I asked him, "Do I seem ordinary to you?"

     The plant at the base is Lysimachia nummularia (Moneywort).  The first terrace has Sedum floriferum 'Weihenstephaner gold' and the next terrace Vinca minor (Periwinkle).  The dark green plant in the center is Muelenbeckia axilaris (Wire Vine).