Where To Stop
For the past four months I have slowly but surely been reworking the back hillside. What has been simple gardening for the most part has turned into a passion of sorts. This was not a grand plan that was carefully thought through, but an evolving vision that just happened. It started with a set of existing paths that the prior owner had used to access the different parts of the back hill. She had chosen to have a well-developed area close to the house and then leave the rest natural. I can’t be sure that was always the plan since there are a number of stumps that imply larger plants, but I just can’t determine if they were indigenous or planted and then cut down. When I bought this property, the folks at Chubb insurance dealt with the only real physical risk inherent with the location by requiring that I cut down all the brush within two hundred feet of the house. At the time, I just wanted to meet the insurance requirements and didn’t care much about the aesthetics. I was prepared to accept the close in landscaping that the prior owner had established and leave it at that.
The first breach of the established envelope was the decision to create the Bison Boulder late last autumn. During the time awaiting fabrication of the Bison parts, I was very preoccupied by the rebuilding of the deck. The only aesthetic decision I made was to move two rather large cacti from in front of the Bison Boulder off to the ravine to the north. The rest of the hillside was pretty raw and rock-strewn, with the occasional weed patch. My intention was to have a wilderness or prairie where the Bison sat and ruled the wild. I then got the idea that the Bison should be lounging in prairie grass, so I planted a variety of ornamental grasses, dominated by purple fountain grass. I got the brainstorm then to plant wildflowers on the southern bank rolling down to the Bison. To insure the flowers would take, I had irrigation drip feeds installed.
I next decided that the wooden benches I had place down in the games area should be moved to the back hillside. I found a spot on the big rock and under the live oak. Sitting on those benches I started to envision a different kind of back hillside. The first screaming for attention was the Little Rock steps leading down between the boulders in the middle of the hillside. I planted a combination of drought-tolerant native plants and flowering ice plants. I had irrigation put in as well, which was simply an extension of the existing irrigation zone. When I came back from our five week eastern road trip, the rock garden and the wildflower gardens had flourished with all the attention and irrigation. I was pleasantly surprised at the improvement they both represented.
I went through my first stencil rock painting phase and put some petroglyphs on several boulders including the far northern boulders beneath the metal Joshua Tree statue. It took my attention to that rocky slope from the northern ridge that went out to the Joshua Tree. I got it in my head to transform that rocky slope into a rock garden like the one adjacent to the center rock stairs. That small rock garden had done so nicely with groundcover ice plants rolling over the rocks that I thought I should replicate it on that rocky northern slope. Over several weeks, I ended up gathering and placing about 140 plants on that full several hundred feet of slope. It forced me to think about how people would best view the new rock garden and that caused me to plan a path out along the ridge line. A path has to end somewhere and I decided it needed to end with a teak bench from which people could enjoy the full rock garden.
One path invariably leads to another and in addition to enhancing the existing path down around the central boulders, I added a path down to a resting spot from which a visitor could enjoy an up-close view of the Bison Boulder and a perfect lateral view of the norther slope rock garden. A second teak bench went there. Putting in a path means putting down bark mulch to offset the path, which I did on both sides, using the natural boulders as guides. This left the entire southern third of the hillside as it was and the ravine at the base of the northern slope in its natural state. I decided quite intently to leave those two areas natural to contrast the mulched and manicured/planted portions. But it didn’t take more than a week or so to change my mind and order more bulk mulch and pathway DG to even further enhance the southern and central part of the hillside. And where there is mulch there needs to be more plantings. I have been buying 25 or so new plants each week. My procedure is to place them for Joventino to plant properly on his next visit. I have Handy Brad bring two Mexican day laborers (they have come three times so far) to haul the mulch and DG downhill. I have developed a system as it were to renovate the hillside.
After today’s placement of three super bags of material on the hillside, I didn’t even pretend to stop there. I ordered another seven super bags for delivery on Wednesday and arranged for the laborers to come back on Thursday to put down the last of the coverage for the back hillside. That is no exaggeration, I will end on Thursday by having transformed the entire hillside and I could not be happier with how it looks. There are still several areas that do not get reached by irrigation, but those areas only have highly low-water plants like cacti and succulents. I have noted that agaves seem to flourish on the hill without water. And here’s the thing, I now LIKE to go down the hill in the evening to give everything a drink of water. I don’t think any of the plants I have put in will lack for water so long as I live here.
People are already asking me what I will be doing next on the property. I hate to tell them, but I simply don’t seem to know how to stop transforming. I told Kim that I suspect that I missed my calling and that I should have been a landscape architect. Notice I didn’t say a landscaper because I do much better planning out the transformation and doing some of the work, but having lots of help with the heavy lifting. I don’t really have to grapple yet with stopping since I will simply have a large one plus acre back hillside that has been made into a park with pathways, benches (five in total so far) and extensive munched beds. There are certainly a goodly number of plants as well. I estimate that I have put in 250 so far and I imagine there are another 50 or so to be bought and placed before the hillside is fully planted. Therefore, I have a few more weeks of playing to do before I need to contemplate where to stop. I will add that I have just ordered and gotten a set of Native American petroglyph stencils that I am planning on placing here and there to be seen randomly from the various benches where people will be sitting.
Where to stop? When to make an end? As Michelangelo said to Pope Pius, when I am finished.