Napa's Mid City Nursery in the early '60s
Now that spring seems to have arrived in Napa, we're starting to plan out some of our landscaping. At the moment we're focused on stripping and cleaning the front and back yards, removing all debris as well as unwanted plants and stones. It's a slow and tedious process that will take a long time to complete but I enjoy being able to go outside and spend time in my yard. The exercise is good too!
Over the weekend we made a visit to our local Home Depot and Orchard Supply Hardware stores as well as the wonderful Mid City Nursery. Mid City Nursery is located on the outskirts of Napa and it's a huge place that sells lots of lovely garden plants, fruit and shade trees, shrubbery, ground cover, seeds, paving stones, garden decor and many other supplies. It originally opened in 1954 (the same year that our house was built!) and its one of largest nurseries in the area. The sellers were all very friendly and helpful, which is great when you're novices like us and need lots of help. We were especially happy to discover that they carried a large variety of Japanese trees and plants that grow well in our Northern California climate. We have a beautiful Japanese maple tree in our backyard so we're planning to use it as the inspiration for our landscape design. My husband and I both love Japanese gardens and mid-century modern designers were often influenced by Japanese design so hopefully we can incorporate a lot of those aspects into our own yard.
Here's a few pictures I took over the weekend while we were doing yard work.
Our back porch and patio needs an overhaul.
The Japanese maple tree in our backyard surrounded by weeds.
Removing stones and debris from the front yard.
The red wheelbarrow was the first tool we bought.
The stones we removed are piling up! We plan to use some in our own landscape design and get rid of the rest.
We discovered Mr. Toad in our yard along with some crawfish. We assume they must have crawled out of the Napa river and found a new home in our yard.
I love the maple!
ReplyDeleteAt some point I'm going to scan some pages from this old Modernist garden design book I've got, which I've mentioned once or twice in my garden blog. The guy who wrote it was an important figure in mid-century garden design, but he's no longer very well known (name escapes me).
I think you'd like his low-maintenance designs that focus on the structure of the hardscaping.
The colors of the maple leaves are just amazing! They actually look lime green. Almost neon even.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to see some pages from that garden book. It sounds great! I recently ordered a couple of old used garden & landscaping books published by Better Homes & Gardens in the '60s-70s that I found at Amazon for $2-3 bucks. Hopefully they'll come soon since I'm looking forward to checking them out. If they're any good I'll blog about them.
love mr. toad!
ReplyDeletehow is the yard looking now in june?
Hi Nicole! Thanks for stopping by. The yard project is currently on hold since we had to change focus and start working on the inside of the house for awhile. Hopefully we'll get back to it soon. Everything is slow going since my husband and I both work and we're doing the renovation on our own but hopefully I'll get to share some more updates soon. :)
ReplyDelete