My Yard

I live in a two-story foursquare house that was built in 1905. It's what is known as a kit home, as it has simplicity of lines and design elements that were found in mass-produced home kits that could be delivered and assembled at the home site.

The previous owners were a man named Robert Pleasance and his wife. By all indications, Mr. Pleasance was a bit of a tinkerer. Remnants of an engine lift in the garage, a workbench and old-fashioned intercom system in the basement, the handmade concrete birdbath with fountain (that regretfully didn't work anymore)...

The yard, as a result, has beautiful bones as a landscaper would say, and just as many quirks that I acknowledged with a shrug. On the plus side: the back yard was fenced in with chain link, except for two gates leading from side yards to back yard, which were old-fashioned iron fence and gate, painted white. There were stone steps to the back that, although weathered, were not a complete ruin; The back yard was just right for a small patio and a decent garden.

The quirks: Mr. Pleasance had torn down an old brick one-car garage once he built his big garage/workshop (which looks uncannily like a pole barn with foldout doors) and built a hill with fine dirt and scree from the demolition. In other words, he reproduced a Mediterranean hill in a non--Mediterranean climate, which meant nothing but weeds, and even scarce ones at that. I appreciated the recycling at the same time I wondered what I could possibly do with this hill other than let the weeds grow. Also, there was a trellis serving as a grape arbor, but the grapes had been neglected and the arbor more so -- it had been cobbled together from narrow iron pipes and cattle panels, and had started listing to the left. The grapes, still alive, had abandoned the trellis for the fence.

We've been wrestling with the yard a little at a time. Much of the backyard is a cluster of raised beds for vegetable gardening (heirloom and quirky varieties you can't get in a store) which surround a small patio and grill. (If we have guests, we'll have to move off the patio, it's that small.) The bars that remain for the trellis will be used, with the cattle panel, to grow squash temporarily until we get the trellis back. Then we will plant more grapes and make the shady garden into a meditation nook or something.

The hill -- we've found things that are falling in love with the hill -- herbs. It turns out many herbs grow on scree -- thyme, mint, sage, oregano, rosemary -- and we're getting good results with these. The tarragon, surprisingly, is growing better than anything I've seen grow before. We still have a lot of the hill to fill up, but we're pulling weeds to keep it looking like it will become the quirky haven we hope to see.