Gardener 2

Tiburcio, our mow-blow-and-go guy hit me up for "me checka" yesterday. Six months back wages.

So much for all that sweetness and light.

Oh well. the guy's got to pay the bills.

Spring 2

I learned yesterday that our long-time "mow, blow, and go" gardener, Tiburcio Alamillo, is still coming by the house to care for the front yard on Saturday mornings. 

What a beautiful gesture. Trudging over the blackened patch of ash, glass, and plaster that used to be the beautiful fescue grass lawn he had recently installed, he trims and prunes, waters and weeds our two small bits of garden with the same care and attention he gave every week we lived there. 

I wonder what he thinks, as he cares for the roses, pentas, and Brazilian skyflower now appreciated only by the butterflies and passersby. Gardens, after all, are artificial constructs of nature, careful arrangements of the wild into the tame. Though philosophers  have argued the esthetics of gardening at least since the late 17th century, no matter where you fall on the arranged vs. wild-seeming axis, it is indisputable that, like tanks at the Aquarium, no garden exists in nature. In our case, it is merely a floral decoration before a now indecorously charred wooden box.

Perhaps, though, as one acculturated to the careful tending of the land, he knows instinctively that what lives demands attention, and that our future is built on the patient ministrations of today. 

Clip and shear. Fertilize and hydrate. Process over product. Structure follows strategy. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single snip.

Spring has sprung

Spring came to the house as if it didn't matter if we were there or not. It's startling. The Australian tea trees ( left) have never looked lovelier and all the butterfly bushes E planted (right)  look like inviting pollen factories for our migrating Monarchs.

David next store slips by every once in a while and waters things, a kind and delicate gesture. i do as well when i go to pick up the mail.

Before the fire, we had just removed a beautiful Altissimo vine rose from in front of Montezuma's window to make way for the new lawn. After the fire, all of our burnt possessions were piled on the front lawn for weeks, effectively killing whatever grass was not destroyed by the firemen. it left our front lawn a hard packed patch of ash and cinder, liberally mixed with pieces of glass, metal lathe, 90 year old nails, charlie's marbles, melted plastic,and whatever else got dragged outside. the watering system was wholly destroyed of course, and so the former lawn dried to a Bonneville Salt Flat firmness.

As March came in like a lion (well, more like a puddy cat in LA), not one, but three stalks of the aforementioned rosebush poked their tender shoots through the clay and sprouted green leaves. 

Tenacious little bugger.