Dreaming of a Garden Hideaway

Since my first spring in this home, I have been dreaming of a garden hideaway.  A place concealed by trees and shrubs, surrounded with flowers, where one could spend a hot summer's day enjoying a book or sewing.  I want it big enough that the whole family could hang out and play, but not big enough for an impromptu game of football.  I dream of having a outdoor fire place, with an oven in the chimney and a built in grill. 

I can imagine spending the afternoon reading and playing with the children, even napping outdoors.  Lighting a small fire as the day begins to cool, and cooking supper, then eating together, all in out little get away.

I want a big lawn near by, with lots of room to run.  I want a play house for the kids, with a climbing wall and a zip line, swings and a flag on top.  There should be a sandbox nearby, for the littler ones to dig in. 

In the seven and a half years we have lived here we have done much to improve the landscaping of the yard, adding trees and dimension, improving lawns.  We tilled up half of our back yard to make a vegetable garden.  I have added flowers to my collection, nearly every year.  This last winter, I think the voles enjoyed over half of my bulbs.

Today, as I surveyed the yard, I think I may have found the place for my retreat.  It is in my vegetable garden.  For several years, I have transplanted runners from a friend's house to my yard.  Most of them have not survived, but the that few have seem to be thriving.  On the East side is a honey suckle, a couple of lilacs, a yellow rose bush and a couple of little trees that blossom with yellow flowers.  My bearded iris and peonies that I ordered the first year we lived here are stationed on that side of the garden.  At one time, they were at the foot of the garden, but as we kept expanding, they found themselves in the middle of one side.

Bearded Iris, chives, egyptian onions and a lilac bush.  The future corner of my hideaway?

It was never meant to be their permanent home.  I had bought them with a specific home in mind, but by the time they had arrived, my husband had announced other plans for the area... so I planted them at the top of my garden, hoping that by the next fall I would know where their permanent home would be.  Two years later, I moved them to their present home.  Now I am thinking it might be close to their permanent home.  If I get more runners from my friend, and line the north edge of my garden with them, then I will have two sides of my hideaway begun.  The two sides that face the world. 

The west side of my garden is going to get plenty of trees and shrubs too, but I want them to be bigger and sturdier.  The kind that kids love to climb.  The kind that will protect my yard from the wind.  The kind of trees that will attract birds to come and stay. This spring I transplanted about a dozen willows to the west edge.  They are doing well.  I have a birch, a crab apple, a lilac and a nanking cherry coming up on that side also, but only because they have not found there perminite home yet either.  That is, unless I decide not to move them!