My Garden

I have always been an avid gardener. When I was growing up, my father had bare root rose bushes lining the back wall of the yard. There were maybe ten bushes, all different colors, and one of my favorite summer pastimes was to tend to them.

When SPF and I moved out here, we first had an apartment with a balcony (actually, make that five different apartments with various forms of balconies) but never a yard. Then we moved into a little cottage by the beach that was where we would still be living today had we not been forced to leave when the owner sold. (We would have bought it, mind you, if it hadn't been running 750K. No, I'm not kidding.) The little cottage had an ocean peek and a giant yard filled with a flowering ivy that attracted the most wonderful butterflies and hummingbirds. Along one of the walls, there were also three rose bushes that I tended because the gardening service hired by our landlord seemed only capable of mowing the ratty lawn and trimming the prolific bougainvillea. I loved that cottage.

In a mad panic, however, we were forced to move. Despite our hurried timeline we decided to purchase our own house. Something practical that would be an investment instead of a financial drain. We have been here now for six years. It's main problem - no yard. I started to long for blooming life again and soon bought three pots and three roses. The first, true to any romantic's heart, was the velvet red.


After that I tried various combinations of other flowers and plants, but the only ones that I could manage were the roses. But I tried, none-the-less. When the landslide struck, we were given, to babysit, a sickly jasmine on a climbing lattice. At the time I was under the impression that we would be returning the jasmine to her owner and was so greatly distressed at how poorly she fared under my care. But, my care was limited. Soon after we got her, I went off to school and the maintenance of the garden was left in other hands. The roses and the succulents did fine. The pine tree that started to grow out of an abandoned pot thrived. The little jasmine struggled and choked for life.

A little over a month ago, my mother came out and we decided to do a project to rejuvenate my little, concrete patio and turn it into something living, something comforting and blooming. In a stroke of miscalculation we ended up with too many small flowered plants and in desperation, I planted the remaining Elysium and blue flowers in the pot with the jasmine. Today, they are all thriving.


Around the rest of the garden we planted geraniums, snapdragons, daisies, petunias, impatients, and the fabulous little flowers that look like orchids but are of sturdier making. They are fantastic. Along one wall we are growing our own tomatoes, limes, mint, parsley, and basil. The whole garden is alive with color and the fresh scents of jasmine, roses, lime, and mint, which together make for a bouquet of inviting life.


And invite life, it did. One of the problems with having the garden would be the pests. In this case, my greatest fear. Beneath one of the pots of snapdragons, Elysium, and blue flowers lived the deadliest spider in North America, despite the fact that everyone I know told me that they didn't live in California. In an interesting twist of fate, my fear of this spider in particular was moderated by my desire to get a shot (and proof) of its existence in the way that I could manage to get close enough for this shot while maintaining a safe enough distance to preserve my limbs. The Macro mode on my G10 requires a certain proximity to the subject of choice, and so I am much, much closer to her than I would normally be comfortable with. But alas, the camera functions for so many of us as a kind of courage. It is an instrument set between us and danger. A wall. A barrier. A shield. It doesn't seem to matter that it actually has no real protective integrity.