Before you ever step into the Etcheverry’s backyard, you get an impression of the immaculate design beyond its no-spaces-for-prying-eyes fence.The striking front yard, with its complementary shades of greens from chartreuse in the hosta leaves to the darker hunter green of the impeccably trimmed bushes and the perfect lawn, invites speculation.
Even the simple raised garden in the alley behind the fence gives off the impression of effortless style.In past years maintaining such an impressive yard has been anything but effortless. This summer, Bernie Etcheverry, who’s the green thumb in the family, says he and his wife Jackie, along with a hired hand, had spent six weeks working in the backyard to change that.
“The impetus for changing things this year is that I’m trying to make the yard lower maintenance, however it’s been a tremendous amount of work.”The work included removing 120 feet of hedge and upwards of 10 shrubs and junipers, as well as increasing the size of the plant beds. “The idea,” Etcheverry says, “was to cut back on hedge trimming.
”Increasing the plant beds sounds almost counterintuitive to creating less work, but Etcheverry says, adding bark mulch to the garden every three years has stopped them from having to turn it over to weed it."
Instead, increasing the plant beds gives the yard its interesting pops of colour and texture and decreases the amount of grass that needs to be cut. The bark mulch also has the added benefit of decomposing over time and replenishing the soil with valuable nutrients.
“I’m just trying to do something lower maintenance because sometimes it becomes work and not pleasure,” Etcheverry says, laughing. “I’m hoping there aren’t any (future projects), although you never really are done are you.”
While Etcheverry may not sound convinced that the weeks of work are getting them any closer to the fabled “low-maintenance yard,” the method the Etcheverrys have come to favour in their backyard promises to get them there, or at least close.
If there is some work to be done in the backyard, it is in the select group of succulents Etcheverry over winters.
Since familiarizing himself with the plants about six years ago, Etcheverry has become skilled with handling the notoriously finicky plants, judging by the hearty garden bed of hens and chick and prickly pear and the planters of shwarzkopf.
While Etcheverry is hesitant to make other plans requiring work in the garden, he allows that if he does come up with any future projects, he hopes it “would be around doing interesting things with succulents.”
One of these already completed interesting projects is a former birdbath turned succulent planter. In its second year of growth, the trick to the brim-full fountain appears to be the maturity of its plants.
The work is takes to save the plants from certain death in a snowy North Battleford winter is a tradeoff Etcheverry is glad to make. When it comes to yard maintenance at the Etcheverry's it's about finding a balance between work and pleasure and, as far as the picturesque, relatively easy to manage yard is concerned, that philosophy seems to be working out fine.
