The Hill of Life
This morning we are having a brief respite from the rain and with the sunshine has come a desire to squeeze in whatever yard work I can do since in a week I will be away for three weeks and the garden will go untended. I’m having Joventino come back next week so that we can give it a final touch up before we head out as well. Last night I took delivery of 25 5’ wooden stakes to supplement my supply of sturdier 8’ wooden stakes, and I am on a rampage to support all of my tall and potentially vulnerable succulents and plantings so as not to have more rain-related tree-falls around the property. So, I spent the morning working the new open space on the front hillside where the big Euphorbia that came down used to sit. I put in three new pots of varying sizes with different succulent plantings in them as well a handful of new exotic cacti cutting of scale that I was given in exchange for some of my Euphorbia plant material (I gave big branches to plant to four neighbors). I also had Joventino transplant three Euphorbia arms in the front and about six across the back hillside in random places that needed a bit of fill. I then went around and staked most any tall slender succulent that looked like it could use some added support. It gave me the opportunity to tromp around all over my 2.5 acre hillside, front, back and both sides. I hadn’t done that in a while and it was such a pretty morning, it seemed like a nice Saturday morning activity.
I have several seating areas on the front hillside and a full eight benches placed all over the back hillside along the various paths that I have gradually cut into the hillside. I consider benches to be the most important of the elements of the garden because they give me good cause to travel from bench to bench to survey my hill and do so while pacing myself in between fits of yard work. The benches make the work happen because they are the reward for accomplishment and they force me to go to all the corners of the garden if for no other reason than to test the bench strength and gain the perspective from that perch. I have a very four dimensional garden. It looks different and you can see different elements from all angles and during all seasons and times of day (hence the fourth dimension of time). I also have worked hard to give my garden a diversity of plantings and a diversity of elements. The plantings range from low and high succulents and cacti to other native and flowering plants of all kinds. Some are small perennials. Some are California wildflowers. Some. Have grown from small flowering plants into large flowering bushes. The randomness of the heights and dimensions of the garden are what make it so interesting. Needless to say, the array and scale of the strewn-about boulders are a meaningful presence everywhere on the hillside and they form the skeleton of the hillside design plan. All paths lead back to the house, but they do so at the direction and mercy of the largest boulders that really set the layout of the garden.
Those natural elements and the diversity they naturally entail are then supplemented by a host of more purposeful and sometimes whimsical elements that have been added over four years, less with a master plan and more with a spur of the moment enthusiasm or inspiration. First came some large sculptures like the Bison Boulder, my 11’ colorful Mexican Rooster and the Leaping Bighorn Sheep. Then I needed some paths to get to them, so I put down DG to do the trick. That gave me some logical spots to plant my benches and create some landing areas where I could put smaller metal sculptures here and there. One trip down the paths and Kim forced me to put in steps in two places where the hiss gets steep. I was resisting, but when a friends wife slide down at one of those spots and went on her backside, I relented and cut some four by six pressure-treated lumber that I set in with J-bar rebar stakes. When I proudly took Kim down the steps, she told me that I needed to put in handrails. She had said a dozen years ago when we put in the hot tub and I can only say that thank God we did because I’m not sure I could in and out without it. So, I bought some wood rails and attaching hardware and 4×4 posts that I set into the hill with special post stakes that go down about three feet to stabilize the posts. A few months later I found the posts too wobbly to support full weight so I reinforced them all with metal stakes pounded in along side them on the inside. As you can tell, I was taking my back hillside very seriously.
Somewhere along the road I found the large boulders were not enough and I started painting them. It started with some stenciled desert icons like hawks and cacti as well as a few Kokopelis and Anasazi sunbursts. Then, after I watched my nephew Jason spray-paint a grand and magnificent Otomi mural on the garden side of our house, I gained enough confidence to break out the for my own use. I started by painting a large abstract agave, zebra plant and some cacti. Then I graduated to a bear and a howling wolf/coyote. These boulder paintings have seasoned well by now and almost look like ancient cave drawings. They are each visible from the various benches around the hillside. They are complemented by miscellaneous glazed pots of various sizes and shapes, planted with every variety of succulent imaginable and a few painted rocks in honor of the various grandkids of our families.
As I wander wound the property and look at all the things I like about this place, it occurs to me that everything a person might want (at least this person) is right here on this hillside. There is nature and art. There are family remembrances like the Hobbit House I have built for my granddaughters at my daughter’s suggestion. There are the pathways that have been traveled by drone by my youngest son, who has drone shot this place from every angle. There are the ancient boulders that have been been here since before recorded time and will be here long after the human race has seen its last sunset. There is the sunrise over the mountains to the east and sunset over the ocean to the west. There is design aesthetic to suite every style and there is mechanical innovation around the spa and the internet of things that inhabit the systems of the house like the spa and the gates and garages.
I want to find something on this hillside that I can improve on and I am having a problem, and that’s a good thing.