We will consider shape, size, and content here.
 
For most people, the circle or oval is the most common shape that comes to  
mind for a flower island. It helps soften the straight edges of the house and  
blunts the straight lines of the roof ridges and drives. You can also be  
creative even with a perfect circle because your canvas is the inside of  the 
circle and not its edges. If your front yard is flat, you can be a bit  creative 
by building artificial slopes or undulations in the island. This will  give the 
impression of cutting a disc in your front yard and tilting it to show  to 
the world with the flare of a gourmet waiter or conjurer. Try to visualize it  
for a moment. Use a mirror pivoted at opposite ends and imagine undulations  in 
the face of the mirror instead of the smooth glass surface. Now imagine  
clusters of lush plants sprouting from the surface. Remmember, the tilt is  ever 
so slight, 20 degrees say, to the flat surrounding.
 
For size, I usually go with feel. However, try to make it  proportional to 
the amount of land in the front yard and the size of your  building. For a Half 
acre front yard, I would make the island 10 ft in diameter.  for a 1/4 acre, I 
recommend 5ft Dia., and for a 3/4 acre front yard, 15ft. Dia.  is reasonable. 
For purposes of this project, we will choose a 10 ft. Dia  island.
 
Next, you have to make a decision as to what border you will have. You can  
have a border of landscape blocks, a perennial plant like juniper,  Dianthus, 
or day lillies, or even daffodils, but daffodils go dormant  during the winter. 
For my project I'm using landscape blocks and day-lillies as  lashes for the 
island. Lashes meaning I take the island to be an eyeball and one  cluster of 
day-lillies form one set of lashes over the eyeball. Too bad I dont  have two 
islands side by side. Come to think of it, that may be overkill.  Anyhow, if 
you don't want to spend too much on the border, I recommend the  perennial. 
Landscape blocks come about a foot long and are $2.99 a piece.  For a 10ft. Dia. 
island you may need 32 blocks per course. A course is a full  row of blocks 
around the circle. So for 3 courses of block, you will need 96  blocks for a 
grand total of about $300.00, add in delivery from the  nursery (unless you make 
several trips with your Yugo (5 blocks per trip)), and  you could be looking 
at $400.00. On the other hand, the perennial will cost you  $3.00 a piece and 
spacing of a foot will require 32 plants and only one course  for a grand total 
of $96.00. Plus you can transport all of them yourself in the  Yugo. I must 
tell you though that I wanted block and got a bit creative and only  used 70 
blocks for $210.00 and my Neighbour was kind enough to loan me his  pickup for 
goodwill.
I will share with you how I cut the number of blocks and still produced a  
knockout island that is not boring. Later.
 
For what goes inside the island, you can go really crazy. I don't recommend  
that for Yahya's gardener at the Kanilai palace. You remmember we said  to 
create some undulations and miniature slopes in the island if you have flat  
land? Well that will give the impression of mounds of clusters of lush  life. It 
is generaaly more pleasing to the eye to use clusters of the same plant  rather 
than different plants mixed-in piecemeal to force a colourful  variety. The 
latter becomes a disjointed hue of cold colour. I know we like our  daggit ak 
malans to be colourful but trust me, you will be more pleased with  clusters of 
colour than with lonely variety. Try it on a drawing board. In fact,  you 
should have your concept and design down on paper as we move on. Suntou we  can't 
wait for you to get to the Art & Craft shop. Karim will fill you in on  what 
you missed.
 
To prepare the island therefore as we envisioned, you will need a spade  
(shovel), a pitch fork, and a rake. If you already have ground cover on the  site, 
remove all the ground cover so you can have fun with the wife and kids  
sculpting the surface. Move dirt around to create the unique impression of  
miniature mounds and slopes that you desire. Make sure the dirt is loose up to  about 
5 inches down and the border goes in last. This will only take 2  hours just 
transferring what you or your child draws on paper. We will stop here  for 
now. Preparing to get to this point will take a couple of hours of family  fun. 
Remmember if there is rain in the forecast, cover the sculpted soil with  
plastic until the morrow.
 
Haruna. New Green Thumb. MQJGDT. Al  Mutawakkil.  



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