I wish I’d taken a picture of my yard when I first saw it. I would have titled it, “Still Life With Volkswagen and Weeds.” Indeed, the yard was dominated by the rusting remains of a Baja Bug, surrounded by a vigorous crop of waist-high weeds. The yard was also strewn with full, black plastic garbage bags, broken toys, and a deceased console TV. This detritus had been removed by the time I moved in, except for the weeds, which were flourishing.
While I had no particular gardening plan in mind initially, the tasks seemed to unfold in order. First, the weeds had to be addressed. The yard is laid out in the shape of an L, the side yard and the back seemed to have their own particular attributes to deal with. The side yard is twice as wide as the back, and hosted the dead VW, the TV, and other detritus of day to day living. The back yard is 15 feet wide, and appeared to be an easy challenge, as there were no large appliances or vehicles in evidence. At least, none taller than the four foot weeds!
Step one was obvious, evict the weeds! I borrowed a weed-whacker and set to with enthusiasm. I mowed ‘em down mercilessly! Some of them fought back, with stems too sturdy for the weedwhacker to conquer, but finally I had the yard down to a Don Johnson-like stubble. By then, I blended in perfectly with the heaps, piles, and mountains of vegetable carnage, being uniformly covered in green fragments of my victims. My camouflage was so effective, a Green Lynx spider mistook me for a good place to set up housekeeping!
Step two was also very evident. With the help of Mr. Hoe, I began the tedious task of removing what the weedwhacker missed. Some of the larger weed stems were about an inch in diameter, and very fibrous; I couldn’t chop them, nor could I yank them. They clung to the dirt with ferocious determination, so I finally had to resort to the pruning shears, cutting them off at ground level and concealing the remains with pots.
Now that I had the weeds more or less under control, step three revealed itself. Rocks! Hundreds of rocks! San Diego used to be a gigantic prehistoric watershed for titanic rivers, and the legacy can be seen throughout the region, rounded river rocks of every size and color! Lao Tsu said in his book, ‘The Art of War;’ “turn everything to your advantage.” River rocks make nice landscaping accents, so I began the task of collecting and sorting them into three categories, ‘Loaf of Bread,’ ‘Potatoes,’ and ‘McNuggets.’ In time, I had cairns, heaps, and five gallon buckets of river rocks sorted by size. Having cleared the land, so to speak, step four was revealed in all its hideous glory.
The top layer of the ground twinkled merrily in the sun, exuding a particular odor. My topsoil was a mix of shattered safety glass and dried, powdered dog poop! I resigned myself to scraping this top layer into a glittering, smelly heap, which took several weeks to dispose of. The garbage trucks have limitations on how much weight they can lift, and the pile must have weighed at least a hundred pounds! Slowly, the reeking hill grew smaller as I shovelled portions into the garbage can until, hallelujah, it was finally gone!
The first garden projects were fairly non-invasive. In the corner of the back yard, I placed my large, potted banana plant, surrounding it with potted spider plants and geraniums. Instant tropical paradise! I liked the idea of a bird feeder back there, so I bought a pole with a hook to stomp into the ground. The garden gods were smiling; the hook went in without hitting one rock! I then made a circular border out of potato rocks, with the hook in the center, and filled it with McNugget rocks. My thought was, with the rocks underneath, if any birdseed sprouted it could easily be sprayed away with weed killer. About a week after I hung the feeder, I noticed the rock circle starting to fall apart. The rocks were migrating! I replaced them. They wandered away again. The mystery of the migrating rocks was solved when I spotted a Towhee busily scratching at the base of the rocks. He was kicking away like a little chicken, breaking up my lovely circle and punting the smaller rocks several inches. I bought another hook, jammed it down in the middle of the side yard, and moved the feeder. I snipped off bits of a potted Hen and Chicken and stuffed these terrifying succulents around the rock border.
The problem was solved, and the rocks no longer migrate. A hummingbird feeder hangs there now, and the hummers are much more considerate of the landscaping.
To my surprise, the succulents are thriving in the rock circle, creating an attractive accent to the river rocks.
The side yard seemed rather stark, bare dirt, rockpiles, and a bird feeder. It needed something. More rock borders! I laid out a rough oblong of potato rocks, and arranged potted succulents behind it. A big strawberry pot overflowing with Hens and Chickens is surrounded by smaller pots of cacti, aloe, and other desert-type flora. A wonderful old wall made of (yep!) river rocks provides a splendid backdrop for this display, which I planted with California Poppies and Love in a Mist. The orange and blue flowers were spectacular last summer! A bucket of discarded black aquarium gravel gave me an idea for an addition. I laid out a few more borders off the main arrangement, and used the gravel to fill in the spaces. Then I distributed small, flat, black stones collected at the beach on the gravel. A larger section utilizes a cow skull I found, which looks very interesting resting on the black aquarium rock. With the cacti, the flat beach rocks, and the cow skull, I’ve got this whole Zen Japanese desert thang going!
This is my first residence with a yard, and I was quite pleased with the garden so far. This gardening stuff is a piece of cake! So I thought, until I had the brilliant idea of establishing wildflower beds in the back. It seems that these river rocks are not only surface dwellers, they are also able to exist underground! Had I known then what I know now, I would have probably just scattered plaster gnomes and pink flamingos around , installed a patio table and chairs, and called it a yard.
But, I had this pile of nice pinkish-tan slate tiles I wanted to use. I pictured flowerbeds bordered by these tiles on either side of the rock circle with the hummingbird feeder. I took up a shovel and started to dig.
Clunk! A rock. Clunk! Another rock. Okay, the shovel wasn’t working. I borrowed a tool that resembles a hoe, but instead of the blade it has four narrow tines.
I found that the tines were better suited to fit between rocks and winkle them out of the soil. Not only rocks began to emerge. The site began to resemble an archaeology dig! The ground was stuffed with artifacts of a bygone tenant.
By the time I completed the first bed, I had a deep and unwanted understanding of the people who lived here before me. By the time I completed the second bed, I was extremely irritated by these people.
After digging up a section, I would sort out the rocks and toss them into a pile. This was made hazardous by the numerous shards of broken glass. Apparently, they were fond of swilling beer and shattering the empties in the back yard! And not only that, they had children playing in the same area, as the sharp glass was mixed with marbles, broken Happy Meal toys, an eyeless baby doll head, crushed toy cars, and mystifying remnants of a puzzle where all the pieces were identically shaped.
That’s not all I excavated from the dig. In the first bed, I dug out the remains of an entire coffee table! These people buried furniture! They also threw out the remains of their meals; I found chicken bones, pork chop bones, clam shells, fish bones, and pig knuckles! I found rusted silverware. I found dice. At one point, I thought I’d found Great Aunt Louisa when I dug up a garbage bag containing something wrapped in a sheet. It turned out to be a bag of clothes. Why visit the laundromat when you can just bury it in the back yard?
I dug up broken mirrors. I dug up old, rusty tools. Brass shells from a .22. A delicate porcelain hand holding flowers, decorated with a worn edging of gold. A child’s discarded tooth. Bolts, nuts, pliers, washers, a knife, an unravelling casette cartridge, something crumbly and yellow that smelled funny, I uncovered them all. Pen springs, push pins, paper clips, clothespins. A wad of hair. A scrap of carpet. Car parts, lawn darts, bits of string, a Lion King, an acrylic nail, a plastic whale, I filled buckets with this stuff! Digging these two beds took me a month of hacking, sifting, sorting, and discarding, interspersed with bathroom breaks to wash out the occasional cut inflicted by a broken bottle.
I know all about these vanished tenants. I know what they ate, I know they had at least one boy and one girl, I certainly know what kind of beer they drank! (Corona: la cervesa mas fina!) I know they didn’t smoke. I found everything but the kitchen sink which, by the way, is working its way up out of the ground in the side yard in the form of big, porcelain chunks!
Several weeks and many blisters later, I had my wildflower beds finished, and laid down the tile borders. The back yard was half completed. There was space and tiles left for two more beds. One area was being used as a potting area, but the area to the left of that was perfect for another bed. The only problem was a sloping area where the higher side yard was eroding down into the back. I cut the bank away, and placed a 2x8 board across to shore it up, supported by a fence post and the corner of the walkway where it makes a 90 degree angle around the back of the house.
Many buckets of rocks, glass, and doodads later, the flowerbeds were finally completed! By now, the first two beds were beginning to bloom with the wildflower mix I’d sown. Hummingbirds, songbirds, and butterflies were now regular visitors. Flower bowls and tall sunflowers added color to the side yard, along with tomatos, peppers, corn, and a pumpkin vine.
As fall began sliding into winter, the temperatures became tolerable for landscaping projects. Flat McNugget rocks were laid out as walkways in the side yard, and the pumpkin vine, having squeezed out three stingy dwarf punkins, was replaced by a bulb bed. The cherry tomatos were evicted in favor of hollyhocks and tall larkspur, and free-range nasturtiums crawled over the neighbor’s fence to establish themselves.
Digging behind the succulent rock garden, I discovered why the corn only got a foot tall there; I pulled out a rock the size of a whole prime rib! That poor corn reached rock bottom and stopped growing!
All that remains now is to watch, water, weed, and wait for the results of this year’s labor!
Yeah, right. If only it worked that way. Unfortunately, I concocted a new project for the potting area in the back. I want to establish a butterfly garden in the last uncultivated patch of useable yard. The idea of providing a haven for the caterpillars of favorite species appeals to me. We enjoy butterflies so much, yet mercilessly hose their children with pesticides when they appear on the flowers. This will be another excavation project, a symphony for garden claw and shovel. The trash buckets are ready for the wealth of glass and plastic I’m bound to unearth. Who knows what will come to light this time! A sofa? A bathtub? A phung? Maybe I’ll even find Great Aunt Louisa!
