I must rely on our neighborhoods NOT taking to heart the quote, “Show me your garden and I shall tell you what you are.” For if they do, they’d think Davy and I are stoned, which we aren’t or gave up ages ago so I wouldn’t lose my teaching credential.
That’s right, we live on a rock where people use picks, chain-gang labor, or dynamiteology to crumble the igneous mountain into boulders, chunks, and pretty little shards, which they then use to demarcate garden areas.
Most of our neighbors have done a lovely job of this.
Our sellers, on the other hand, did not. They nestled (or just left) so many rocks in the yard, I’m still guessing what color the soil actually is. I dig and dig and what do I find? More rocks.
Ironically a Japanese woman who loved Japanese gardens designed it, but she moved away in ’03. Now the only thing remotely Japanese about our garden is the waterfall and pond filled with two Tang-colored and one albino carp. (These fish, by the way are suspect. In an effort to clear up the water, the realtor had thrown in four or five bleach tablets, which killed neither the algae nor the fish.) 
I’ve spent a great deal of time walking the paths of our garden, which IS fun. That’s how I discovered the bevy of California quails nesting under some brambles, the irridescent pink garden snake who stopped to stare back at me, the deer footprints (oh no!!), and the cotton-tailed bunnies mowing our small patch of lawn.
On these walks, two questions continually came to mind: Is this a weed or a desirable plant? What the hell am I going to do with this yard to make it pretty?
I’ve given up asking nurseries the first question. I either get, “One person’s weed is another person’s rose,” or “Leave it alone and see what it does.” Being from SoCal, this last option seems dangerous. I’m a Type A. I need an answer yesterday.
So we’re hiring someone to come out and walk the garden with us and answer both questions. I CANNOT wait!
Still, I want to share some delights of the garden that I really didn’t experience in California.
First, the trees are gorgeous. Many are naturally shaped like umbrellas. Yeah, funny, huh! Others just bend over and drape the earth like a shroud. Pine trees and madronas pop up everywhere. We must have fifteen different varieties of fir in our yard, some never even leave the ground.
In front of Davy’s office there grows, in my opinion, a particularly horrid looking pine tree with its fat trunk sprouting more fat trunks. Sadly, someone should have tamed it years ago. Thus, in the back of my mind I kept thinking, that tree’s days are numbered.
Until last week, when Davy came upstairs and first told me about how the quail family grubs under the tree, and then described how the same bunny makes a daily stop to play and roll in the dirt under the tree, safe from being eaten by the bald eagles and hawks looming above.
The tree’s staying.
I wonder how much of the garden will have the same fate.
PS - here's a real favorite of mine. Evidently a pretty blue spruce volunteered in a walkway, so the previous owners found a way to keep both.
That’s right, we live on a rock where people use picks, chain-gang labor, or dynamiteology to crumble the igneous mountain into boulders, chunks, and pretty little shards, which they then use to demarcate garden areas. Most of our neighbors have done a lovely job of this.
Our sellers, on the other hand, did not. They nestled (or just left) so many rocks in the yard, I’m still guessing what color the soil actually is. I dig and dig and what do I find? More rocks.
Ironically a Japanese woman who loved Japanese gardens designed it, but she moved away in ’03. Now the only thing remotely Japanese about our garden is the waterfall and pond filled with two Tang-colored and one albino carp. (These fish, by the way are suspect. In an effort to clear up the water, the realtor had thrown in four or five bleach tablets, which killed neither the algae nor the fish.) 
On these walks, two questions continually came to mind: Is this a weed or a desirable plant? What the hell am I going to do with this yard to make it pretty? 
I’ve given up asking nurseries the first question. I either get, “One person’s weed is another person’s rose,” or “Leave it alone and see what it does.” Being from SoCal, this last option seems dangerous. I’m a Type A. I need an answer yesterday. So we’re hiring someone to come out and walk the garden with us and answer both questions. I CANNOT wait!
Still, I want to share some delights of the garden that I really didn’t experience in California.
First, the trees are gorgeous. Many are naturally shaped like umbrellas. Yeah, funny, huh! Others just bend over and drape the earth like a shroud. Pine trees and madronas pop up everywhere. We must have fifteen different varieties of fir in our yard, some never even leave the ground. In front of Davy’s office there grows, in my opinion, a particularly horrid looking pine tree with its fat trunk sprouting more fat trunks. Sadly, someone should have tamed it years ago. Thus, in the back of my mind I kept thinking, that tree’s days are numbered.
Until last week, when Davy came upstairs and first told me about how the quail family grubs under the tree, and then described how the same bunny makes a daily stop to play and roll in the dirt under the tree, safe from being eaten by the bald eagles and hawks looming above.
The tree’s staying.
I wonder how much of the garden will have the same fate.
Let's have a pic of the playing bunny, please.
ReplyDeleteUgh! We don't have one.
ReplyDelete