The flax that ate the lawn

When we took on this garden it came with a wall of flax so vast it had eaten most of the lawn and a good deal of my optimism. The previous owner had planted things the way you would scatter confetti — a hosta here, three random hebes there, all of it grown together into one green argument.

We also moved in during the wettest, coldest stretch of the year, and the good part of the lawn quickly turned to a mud pit that the dog treated as a personal spa. No number of old towels by the door made any difference.

So I picked up a spade

There is a particular satisfaction to taking a spade to a flax the size of a small car, though my hands disagreed for a week afterwards. Underneath was a slope of pure mud, and the bank kept trying to slide away down the hill.

It did not go to plan. We had to learn to build a retaining wall from scratch — badly, then a second time, properly — to hold the bank while we levelled the ground behind it.

Where it landed

There is lawn there now, and I replanted the plants worth keeping somewhere they can actually be seen. It is not finished. A garden never is. But the garden and I came to an understanding, and the dog has nowhere left to wallow.