GREEN THUMB : The Day the Garden Shook
After remodeling my Granada Hills home, and doing most of it myself, I was left with a spacious bare-earth back yard, no gardening experience and a tiny budget. Hiring a professional landscaper was out of the question; it was up to me. But after all, if I learned to put ceramic tile on my bathroom floors and hang wallpaper, I could do certainly do this.
So I got started. I discovered as I worked that I absolutely adored gardening. Even weeding was relaxing on a Sunday afternoon. As I enjoyed my lovely garden transformed from a barren wasteland, I was pleased that I had done it myself by taking the advice of good nursery people, by extensive reading of garden books and by my own hard work.
After about 18 months, the garden looked so beautiful that I thought of sending an article about my experience to The Times. I had originally planned to do the article as a step-by-step guide for other novice gardeners. I was convinced that if I could do it, others could learn from my experience.
But it turned out that I had to completely revise my article even before I started.
A terrifying event on Jan. 17 changed all that, when the walls came tumbling down not only in my house but on my beautiful garden.
A five-foot-tall block wall crashed smack on my thriving herb garden and other plants. And there it lay for three days. I had no idea what condition the plants were in, nor could I do anything about them anyway. I had to immediately deal with the damage in my home where I had no gas, electricity or running water.
I found temporary shelter on the other side of the valley at my aunt’s house where there was running water--albeit contaminated. I regularly filled a dozen large jugs with water and transported them in my car through a maze of detours to my home, where the water mains were still broken. There I watered the plants through the pieces of the fallen wall as well as I could. And all this on top of a 72-mile round-trip commute to work each day.
Three days after the quake, my neighbors organized a “block party.” Starting at one end of the street, they formed a relay, removed all of the broken block walls and transported them to a dump.
On the second day of the block party, my neighbors got to my house. Using sledge hammers, they pounded the fallen wall into transportable pieces. My precious plants underneath were subjected to even more trauma. When the wall was gone, I could finally see the condition of my plants and administer CPR.
First I cut all the torn or smashed plants way back. I needed to fertilize the plants to prevent shock and stimulate growth, but I still had no running water. Out of desperation, I stood in line and purchased bottled water at my local market. A few days later I was able to fill my jugs from large water trucks brought to the local high schools for earthquake victims.
During the ensuing weeks I moved to an apartment while my home was being repaired. Each day I stopped by after work to check up on my house and garden.
About six weeks later, I noticed that something was going on in my garden. All my herbs looked fantastic, and new shoots were coming up everywhere. The hedges lining my herb garden were getting huge. All my delicate sages came back bushier than ever, and the scented geraniums bloomed for the first time. What a beautiful sight for me amid all the chaos of destruction and rebuilding.
This set me to thinking. I read that the Jan. 17 quake was a thrust type, sometimes equaling two times the force of gravity. I wondered, was it possible that the intense shaking aerated the soil? Or was it the contaminated water I schlepped across the valley? Did the little micro-organisms in the water provide extra-rich nourishment for my plants?
I have no definitive explanation for this phenomenon. I may never know, but I’m enjoying the results. And if some beauty arose from that horrible destruction, this now-devoted gardener will always be grateful for that.
