Margaret Atwood, "Unearthing Suite," Bluebeard's Egg 1986
With all the introductions out of the way, let's get into my garden.
As you might imagine, my garden has suffered from some inattention
lately due to Joseph's arrival. He has kept me very busy over
the past 15 months. Now, though, he has developed a love for his
own personal park in the backyard.
I was a little worried about such a small child wandering around
in a garden filled with 50+ mature rose bushes but I needn't have
worried. He has only scratched himself once or twice and doesn't
even think about handling the roses. He does like the smell though
and my wife, Rosanne and I have found him with his nose stuck
in the softball-sized, pink Bewitched blossoms. These roses are
named for the 1960's television show since that was when they
were first hybridized. He loves to pick up the pea gravel that
covers the garden paths and put it in his bucket. He has watched
me hand-watering the garden and immediately imitated my actions
with the, thankfully empty, garden hose.
As beautiful as the garden was when we took over, we quickly realized
that the previous owner had planted entirely too many trees. She
had been keeping them heavily pruned back but as her age advanced
she found it more and more difficult to maintain. This has led
to overgrown trees sending up hosts of water sprouts in an attempt
to find sunlight. It also caused large sections of deep shade
that kill off almost any ground plantings.
After 3 years we have finally moved from "editing" the garden to
making a few wholesale changes. The first things to go were trees
that were sickly, overly aggressive or badly positioned. While
none of these trees were mature specimens it was still somewhat
sad. Two carrotwoods (out of 6 total), 2 undetermined, 1 large
ficus and a heavily pruned apricot tree have been the result of
our initial foray. Several of these trees were shading a large
wisteria trellis, forcing the wisteria to attempt to climb the
nearby garage instead of remaining on the trellis. This, along
with the removal and transplanting of other wisteria growing on
the garage, had greatly improved the trellis area. I was totally
surprised when the vine actually threw out a few blossom spikes
this spring. I hope that next spring will be even better.
There are still at least 5 more trees to be removed and a host
of pruning but we took a break of a few weeks while my knee healed
from a minor chainsaw accident. I didn't do the usual foolish
thing of accidentally hitting my leg with the saw blade. I was
working my way down the trunk of the Ficus tree mentioned above
when the chain bound, flew off the guide and whacked into my knee.
Luckily it was a minor injury although it looked pretty bad at
the time. It reminded me I probably should have had jeans on instead
of shorts. Truthfully, only a set of chaps would have prevented
the injury.
The chainsaw was an excellent rental unit from a yard less than
a block from my house. For about $40 for 3 hours it was well-maintained
and sharp. Taking out even the largest tree was a breeze compared
to the saw I had borrowed from my neighbor previously.
More next week?
Douglas
Keep digging...
Douglas
Douglas E. Welch is a freelance writer and comptuer consultant
based in Van Nuys, California.
He can be reached at douglas@welchwrite.com or via his web pages at www.welchwrite.com.