Gardening at the edge of a cliff
Since I can remember gardening has given me a feeling of company and appreciation from the plants, insects and other animals (whom I never really minded if they ate my plants). It has also been a sort of barometer for the dangers of my surroundings.
I was very young when I started my first garden. Then soon after the first of a chain of complains which have been a contant occurence throughout life from the countryside of El Salvador to rural Pensylvania, London and now New York city. Though I carried my share of water from the river to the house and later on carried an extra load of water for my plants, the feeling of under the microscope unwantedness never left me.
It could be the fact that i've never know limits. After my uncles discarded the side panels used to carry sand in the MACK truck, I claimed them and used them as a garden barrier. They were about three feet high and long enough to make a raised bed against the full lenght of the house. I carried the soil from the bottleneck canyon where the cows traveled to and from twice a day and which turned out to be extremely fertile with manure and wood decay.
The scent and worms which sprouted from the flower bed however did not help my situation. Nor the fact that with all the extra space in my garden bed I went around the neighborhood asking for clippings, seeds and roots of anything i came across with.
Here in Brooklyn my street entered the greenest block contest and since then I've been busy beautifying my shady backgarden as well as the treepit, whiskey barrels, window boxes and the front garden.
Right before mother's day someone walked into the front garden and cut all the red tulips. They needed them for someone's mother I suppose; but then one day I got home and my climatis was looking worned. I though it needed water, untill I noticed someone had cut its middle section and thrown it a few feet away from the house. Then this morning I woke up to find all the queen kimberly boston ferns stolen from the pots by the door and a trail of soil down the stoop, across the street and on down the road.
I didn't bother to follow the trail. It's trime to retract and think things over for a while. In the meantime whatever is left in the front of the garden has moved to my back garden. I need to plant something unwanted, yet beautiful.
The feeling of uneasiness will not go away, but that's no reason to stop gardening.
I was very young when I started my first garden. Then soon after the first of a chain of complains which have been a contant occurence throughout life from the countryside of El Salvador to rural Pensylvania, London and now New York city. Though I carried my share of water from the river to the house and later on carried an extra load of water for my plants, the feeling of under the microscope unwantedness never left me.
It could be the fact that i've never know limits. After my uncles discarded the side panels used to carry sand in the MACK truck, I claimed them and used them as a garden barrier. They were about three feet high and long enough to make a raised bed against the full lenght of the house. I carried the soil from the bottleneck canyon where the cows traveled to and from twice a day and which turned out to be extremely fertile with manure and wood decay.
The scent and worms which sprouted from the flower bed however did not help my situation. Nor the fact that with all the extra space in my garden bed I went around the neighborhood asking for clippings, seeds and roots of anything i came across with.
Here in Brooklyn my street entered the greenest block contest and since then I've been busy beautifying my shady backgarden as well as the treepit, whiskey barrels, window boxes and the front garden.
Right before mother's day someone walked into the front garden and cut all the red tulips. They needed them for someone's mother I suppose; but then one day I got home and my climatis was looking worned. I though it needed water, untill I noticed someone had cut its middle section and thrown it a few feet away from the house. Then this morning I woke up to find all the queen kimberly boston ferns stolen from the pots by the door and a trail of soil down the stoop, across the street and on down the road.
I didn't bother to follow the trail. It's trime to retract and think things over for a while. In the meantime whatever is left in the front of the garden has moved to my back garden. I need to plant something unwanted, yet beautiful.
The feeling of uneasiness will not go away, but that's no reason to stop gardening.
posted by KitcheView at 12:38 PM
1 Comments:
That stinks that someone is stealing or cutting down your plants. You should put giant pots of poison ivy out just to teach somebody a lesson. That would bum me out too. It's bad enough when you kill a plant because of not knowing what you're doing, but for a total stranger to come along and do it sucks.
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