Green Thumb : Just a Plot of Land, Not a Lot of Land
While Monet’s elegant, painterly gardens or Martha Stewart’s over-amped horticultural compulsions are what many aspire to, the reality of most of our situations is quite different. The world is filled with people who have the muse but not the means to create their own tiny Edens.
My reality is an apartment in an unfashionable pocket between Silverlake and Los Feliz where all the flower pots I had lovingly tended seemed to walk away on little feet of their own during the night. Indifferently maintained lawns, ranging in color from green to beige, accessorized by bushes shaved into geometric patterns, are maintained by a slash-and-burn gardening team that appear to have an excessive fondness for small, gasoline-powered engines.
After many years of gazing in despair at the two 12-by-12-foot plots of half-dead grass in front of my apartment, I had one of those epiphanous moments. Composing an embarrassingly unctuous note to the landlord, I proposed that if he would allow me to take over the care of the area directly in front of my apartment, I would plant drought-tolerant plants (thereby keeping his water costs down to a minimum) and the gardeners could skip my place while continuing to plunder the rest of the block. He agreed. An additional consideration was to keep my own costs to a minimum; my income is what can only generously be described as moderate, and, let’s face it, I am toiling in someone else’s field.
Several weekends were spent digging up the remnants of the lawn with a borrowed shovel and hand trowel bought for 59 cents at Sav-On. I severely pruned back the long neglected lantana so it would cascade over the brick retaining wall instead of growing into the tangled hedge it had become. When all the lawn had been dug up, I spread steer manure over the soil, turned it lightly, watered and turned it again. I also put down stepping stones scavenged from demolished buildings and construction sites.
Initially, I planned to only use seeds in an effort to keep costs to a minimum. California poppies and nasturtiums are easily started from seeds and nasturtiums, in particular, take off quickly and bloom abundantly, giving early gratification to the nascent gardener. However, my experience with seeds in general is that it’s too tedious a procedure with very iffy results. Target and Home Depot sell pony packs of alyssum, lobelia, Mexican sage and other drought-tolerant plants for $1.49, the same price as a pack of seeds and with much better odds for success.
Geraniums are a good choice for the low-budget gardener. They grow everywhere in Los Angeles and are easily started from cuttings; each joint on the stem can potentially take root. The best technique I found is to start cuttings in a gruel consistency solution of water, potting soil and root hormone. There are many beautiful varieties of geranium (no longer the weedy, neglected plant, once the scourge of so many California gardens) and once established, they take off quickly, again, giving early gratification to the budding gardener.
I longed for a bougainvillea, but even the cheapest ($4 at Home Depot) was more than I felt comfortable spending. Everyone told me bougainvillea don’t take as cuttings, but what did I have to lose?
After leaving a cutting in a rooting solution for two weeks, I planted it. After three more weeks and no action, I decided to dig the thing up. But when I knelt down to do the deed, I noticed two microscopic green buds at a stem joint--I couldn’t have been more ecstatic if I’d birthed the thing myself. Don’t listen to negative advice: It may be difficult to start something from a cutting or seed, but it’s certainly worth a try.
Perhaps at this point I should mention what I would hope is obvious: Don’t steal. Always seek out and ask the owner or tenant of the property if you may take a cutting or a few bricks for stepping stones or whatever. You’ll be surprised how many people are more than happy to help a fellow gardener, and besides, even if they say no, you meet a lot of really nice people.
In fact, the most surprising result of my little gardening foray is social. Understand that I am as far from sociable as you can get. I barely knew any of my long-time neighbors and have always been way too shy to even pass the time of day with local merchants with whom I’ve done business for many years. But being outside on weekends and weekday evenings, well people just naturally stop and chat.
It turns out that Victor, the mailman, is an avid gardener who not only takes care of his place, but his brother’s yard also. The woman who walks her whippet down our street invited me to come by her house for cuttings. My friend and neighbor, Everett, was invaluable in lending me tools and helping me prune the bushes into more natural shapes, and the older couple across the street shyly presented me with a small plant they had bought for me.
Then there are the little girls, one smart and astonishingly agile, and the other shy, with her sweet, soft little voice, who love to help weed and trim off spent blossoms. Whenever I’m out, they come by and help.
Gardening has taught me to move through the world differently. What exactly is growing in someone’s yard, or along the freeway, or in a vacant lot? It teaches humility in its best sense. It brings you back into the world’s details and imparts a sense of the divine through the experience of small, mundane miracles. All kinds of people have gardens of some sort and they all seem to love to talk about them. One of my neighbors told me that every time she passes by my little garden, it makes her smile. Me too.
