Every Which Way But Sideways
It’s Sunday night and today was a very lazy day on the hilltop for both Kim and me. I put in some time on my expert case and before I knew it it was almost 10am on another perfect San Diego summer morning. Mid-80’s with lots of sun and no humidity (ho-hum, just the usual). My agenda was to get the plants I bought yesterday down the hillside to the rock garden and to place them around the northwest end of the back slope so that next week when Joventino comes he will know exactly where to plant them. For some reason, I’ve always liked rock gardens. My first vacation house in the Berkshires is where I first discovered this passion. I say the Berkshires, but technically we were in Columbia County in New York State, just five miles from the Massachusetts border and the little village of Egremont, which is, formally, the Berkshires. I had a three acre hillside amongst the tall pines with a new cabin that was all about knotty pine throughout, floors, ceilings walls, cabinets, pretty much everything. And because the house was built on the hillside, the slope on either side was ripe for rock gardening.
If I remember correctly, I bought the house in 1987. I was flush with cash from a good year (the year I was made a partner of the firm). I had convinced my wife to consider an upgrade of our house to one in Garden City, a lovely town on Long Island that always looked like a place we wanted to head towards. We found a nice house in the old historic part of town and put a $1 million bid on it (back when that was a lot of money). We then got an inspection that came back on the same day that the market crashed in October. There were some iffy things on the inspection report, but mostly I felt that the market crash was going to bring the housing market down around our ears. We pulled out much to the seller’s consternation. It was a good call because when the house retraded, it went for about $700,000. But there I was with housing money burning a hole in my pocket. I have often said that if I ever write an autobiography, I am going to call it “The Hole in My Pocket”. So we bought our first vacation house. Since that little hillside cabin in 1987, I have owned ten other vacation homes. The hole in my pocket just kept getting bigger and bigger.
When I decided to put in rock gardens, it was a bit of a throwback to my college days at the Cornell Plantations arboretum. Rock gardens were all over the place and I really admired them. In those days I really got to like gardening and especially rock gardening. Those hillsides in Columbia County were grassy, but I could see a few big rocks poking through to start with. I got out my pick, shovel and hoe and attacked the hillside one Saturday. Like most things that I do, I tend to overdo. I sweated up a storm and over-exerted myself to the point where that night in bed I thought I was having a coronary. Since I was thirty-three, it was highly unlikely, but in the dark of night when your heart is racing from over-exertion, you don’t tend to think clearly. I survived the night and the soreness on Sunday reminded me that I was just being stupid, both about overdoing it and about thinking I was going to die that night from it.
What I seem to like about rock gardens is that you can be random and you don’t need a garden plan to lay it out. In fact, I think its better to free form it and just go as the spirit moves you. Given that I am generally a planner of the ultimate order, its quite interesting that I like rock gardens because they are anti-planning. So, on that hillside in Hillsdale, New York, I dug out about three or four dozen 300-400 pound rocks and pushed and shoved them around to make little mini terraces where I could fill in some potting soil and plant some nice plants that were mostly perennials and mostly the draping sort that hang over the rocks as they grow. I always enjoy that look.
It doesn’t take too much imagination to think about rock gardens here on this hillside since I am surrounded by boulders that make my Hillsdale rocks look like peanuts. In fact, some might think that out here a rock garden is too much of a cliche. My first rocky thought came about the rock staircase that goes down the middle of the back slope. There was a rock-strewn siding to the right of the stairs bounded by some bigger boulders. I decided to do a little bit of terracing and plant some native and succulent plants. In the few months since I did that, I put in a new irrigation zone to water that spot and the plants have mostly flourished and done just what you want a rock garden to do, which is to drape itself over the hillside. That motivated me and that northern slope facing me from my renovated deck shouted at me. It was perhaps the most sock-strewn hillside I had ever seen and looked pretty perfect for a rock garden. If anything, it is so big (spanning 150 feet or so with a thirty foot slope) that I am almost intimidated by it.
Unlike Hillsdale, this hillside was nothing but rocks all over the surface. 90% of the rocks are loose and moveable, so its pretty easy to use a hoe and move then around to form terraces. In fact, its incredibly easy, but that doesn’t stop it from being hot and sweaty work. The difference between 2021 and 1987 (can you believe that was 34 years ago?) is that I have gotten a lot smarter about pacing myself. I do a few hours of sweaty work per day and make sure to sit on one big boulder or another for extended spells to look at and admire my work and think about what’s next. I’m in no rush. I don’t have a seasonal ticking clock because I can keep working in the yard all winter long. And to be honest, the back hillside was never initially on my to do list for upgrading. It’s just that after eighteen months of work around the property, the back hillside is all that’s left to do.
But even this project is drawing to a close in the next ten days. I have a superbag (1.5 yards) of decomposed, stabilized granite and two superbags of bark mulch coming on Tuesday. I have 25 new plants, 20 of which are placed and ready to be planted on mini-terraces.. I have Handy Brad coming with two laborers next Saturday to put down the DG to make several downhill paths that lead to two seating areas, for which I have purchased two teak benches. One will be down by Mr. Buffalo and one will be up above the new rock garden slope. That will make four benches now in the back, which I think is the limit. These sitting areas are either on rocks or soon on two DG pads. I may end up being the only person that ever sits on them, but that’s OK. I like upgrading the property and beautifying it whether anyone else cares or not (I know Kim does), but I spend endless hours admiring my property and thinking about what I have done, so its enough that I will sit on these benches.
Of course, we chose the great Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church classic, Sideways to watch tonight. There are no rock gardens in it, but lots of rocky paths. It’s as good a story about dashed hopes and dreams as I can remember. The two characters balance each other perfectly and with tremendous humor. I was reminded that at a critical juncture we see Henry Fonda playing in The Grapes of Wrath in the background on the motel TV. It’s that “Wherever there’s a fight, so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there” speech. I know that was no accident. And Miles lives in San Diego so driving on the Freeways feels very familiar to me. The movie offers a great perspective on life and should remind us all that there are worse tragedies than dashed dreams and we need to be happy with what we get in life. I will keep building rock gardens on my rocky hillside and making garden lemonade out of the lemons on my hillside. It’s always good to remind myself to refuse to get sideways with life.