Cheers to a Nice Driveway!

While joining up with some friends camping this summer, we met a man who happened across the Polish side of Buffalo. We were toasting and he came up with the cheer "Nice Driveway!" He explained that those Polish folk in Buffalo kept toasting to their nice driveways, or so he thought. What they were really saying was "Nostrovia!" which translates to "for health." Well, I suppose having a nicely planted driveway contributes to my health and now I can cheer "Nice Driveway!" with the best of them.

Here was my spring training past. Yeah, more lawn gone!

Our driveway is almost obnoxiously huge (for the village). It needed some "balancing" but this is not the sole reason for this new planting bed.

Hello neighbor! This is the view from the left side of our back deck. And though we have great neighbors, sometimes you like to grill or hang out in your own peace of space - I'm sure our neighbor does, too. Our property line literally is the side of their house - crazy old village! But we discussed leaving a nice pathway between us.

Meet "Big Bern", my contractor of choice - okay, he's also my husband. And he was hired (translation - forcibly volunteered) for the job of building me a "trellis" or, as the required village permit stated, a "fence."

The ground work was completed first. These posts are set below the recommended frost line for the North Country - three to four feet. We're pretty gosh darn close to that.

Here it is - the finished masterpiece! I think Big Bern missed his true calling - first the shed, and now this beautiful, custom "trellis."

Add some plants and wow, in one short season we have something much more interesting and a sense of privacy. I am still not certain of everything I want to plant here. It will make for some fun winter planning. For now we have some perennials as fillers which can be moved around. For permanent structure, I planted a Ninebark cross "Coppertina" which I really love (that is still holding its leaves!), and an Arborvitae. Both offer four season interest and I was also keeping the birds in mind.

These annual sunflowers made a great privacy screen for this season. Of course, I already plan to extend the bed further down the driveway next spring.

The only downside is that this is where the snow plow used to plow our snow. And the planned snow blower for this winter is now an unplanned new (used) car. Looks like I will be shoveling snow instead of lawn for my winter training. Oh well - here's a cheer to the shovel and "Nice Driveway!"