Every once in a while I look around me and am in awe of my situation. I spend a lot of time pondering what to do, how to feel better doing it and how to make life better doing it. That is really a silly thing since I live in a golden era, surrounded by beauty no matter which way I turn. If I did not feel so rooted in reality, I would certainly think that I had died and gone to heaven (or at least the Garden of Eden), based solely on what I see out my window in every direction. I know that I ramble on and on about my hilltop, but to be honest, I can’t really help myself, I find it so beautiful.
Our friend Melisa is busy these days putting in a Japanese Garden (she has chosen not to refer to it as a Zen garden for one reason or another…perhaps because that’s what I call what I put in around our patio…and Garden Clubs are not without there subtle competitive nature). Melisa is a very meticulous gardener who knows a great deal about the subject and prides herself in her DIY capabilities. She has a wood shop that would rival that of most suburban males. She impressed me by building a Nelson-style slatted wood bench for her entry that is quite exacting. For her Japanese Garden she has built an arched bridge out of cherry wood that is equally well done. Melisa insists on being a true craftsman and taking whatever time is needed to get it right. She also takes her time and is in no rush to finish. That is not at all like me. I seem always to be in a hurry and I have never cared about whether I was considered a great craftsman. I respect the standard, but simply don’t aspire to it for some reason. In the meantime, I refreshed my Zen garden yesterday with 600 pounds of ⅛” La Paz pea gravel that I hauled with my truck from the rock store and then with my power wheelbarrow over to the patio. Wrangling 75 pound bags of rock does not get easier over time. Where I spread the pea gravel liberally over the garden, figuring to let it settle for a day before I rake it with my artful zen rake, I know Melisa is agonizing over each and every rock placement. She would no sooner go to the rock store than jump out the window. All her rocks are from her property and dragged with great effort to where she wants them. Her rocks curation is quite precise and painstakingly calm. I just do not have that sort of patience, I’m afraid, but again, I do respect it. I love my gardens and am quite proud of them, but as I told the woman who bid $43,000 to put in a 150 square foot rock and succulent garden ($287/sf) that I installed myself for $1,500 ($10/sf), I am strictly a paint-by-numbers guy when it comes to gardening. By contrast, Melisa is the hilltop incarnation of Kobori Enshu, the definitive master of Japanese garden design during the early Edo period.
I suspect that while most people will find my Zen Garden equally as pleasant than Melisa’s, true experts in design will know the difference and see the quality and effort she has put into her project and find my “Motel Art” gardens less appealing. But the real point is that my gardens give me endless pleasure and ultimately that is my goal. I am happy that people always want to tour my gardens and I am proud of them and even brag a bit on my efforts since they are of my own making and doing (remembering always that Joventino puts in one day every three weeks helping me maintain them by doing the heaviest lifting). But that is a collateral effect of my efforts. I do my gardening like I do my writing, because it makes me happy to do it and I somehow feel the need to leave a body of work behind me as I go through life, whether in my story files or on my hilltop. Being prolific feels important to me.
I have a gardening mission today. We have been invited over to dinner later in the week by a relatively new couple in the neighborhood. Technically, they are on a different hilltop, probably a mile to the north, but we actually can see each others’ homes from our respective perches. We know them through the Garden Club and they have been over to our home several times and they are now reciprocating. When Kim asked what we could bring, rather than the usual potluck or wine request, the wife asked that I bring a sampling of succulent cutting to add to their growing array of succulents. She actually sent over a listing from her Picture This app of the succulents she already has in residence. She has what I would call the baseline ordinary array, so I will go around the yard and pluck various and numerous specimens for her and proudly bring them over in a flat. I will admit to a certain sense of pride in having such a diverse succulent garden, but I know from my three big volumes of Jeff Moore’s succulent bibles that I have merely a scant few of the varieties that exist in nature. It is one of the wonders of succulents that they come in so very many shapes, sizes and colors.
Jeff Moore is a true succulent expert with five tomes to his credit. I use his books to look for new, interesting succulents to add to my collection. These smaller additions to my collection fit into various pots and nooks in walls and hillsides and provide interest as one walks through the gardens. But it’s the big, established plants/trees like the yuccas, euphorbias, palo verdes, cacti and specialty plants like the dragon trees and fan aloes that are the giants that define my landscape. They are the ones that make for the breathless vistas that I see while sitting in the living room or on the deck. They never fail to amaze me.