A walk in the neighborhood can be a gardening seminar. There’s so much to learn from other people's front yards, and if a neighbor or two happens to be outside, there’s even an opportunity for class discussion.
On an evening walk this week, for instance, I met Joy in her yard down a narrow side street. She gave me a tour of her 106 roses bushes — all but a few lined up in giant fabric pots.
Her affinity for roses began a few years ago, she said, when her mother passed away, and someone gave her $500 as a condolence gift. She decided to spend it on roses, which her mother had liked.
Perhaps that was hereditary, because Joy liked them so much she kept buying more. She keeps them in pots rather than planting them in the ground because she’s a renter. She joked that she might change her dating site profile to seek a man with land.
Her roses are all radiantly healthy, and just starting to bloom. I hope to visit her again.
Further down the block, there’s a fine stand of foxgloves — a flower that is not native but acts like it is. You probably saw foxgloves blooming on a roadside last week, and if you’re lucky or you planted seeds, maybe even in your own yard.
One of my older neighbors has a girlfriend who detests foxgloves, but fortunately they don’t live together, so he still has them in his garden. (If you don’t have foxgloves but want them, wait a few weeks and harvest seeds from spent flowers. If you turn a flower upside down, seeds will pour into your hand. Just scatter a lot of them where you want them.)
On the next block, there’s a very tall, dying tree with a dead car underneath in what can only be called a Goth front yard. It’s a friendly sort of Goth though, with maybe a slight Evergreen vibe. Variations on this theme — minus the dying tree — abound around here. There’s also a non-Goth strain of people who may mean to do more in their front yards, but settle for tall grass, overgrown shrubbery, and good weed.
One tall-grass house I walked past had this style of disheveled yard with a hammock in it, which is the perfect expression of that spirit.
There are also unkempt yards for another reason: Some neighbors are working people who have small children and demanding schedules. They get a pass on regular mowing.
There are also front yards you might call perfunctory, or maybe obligatory: the ones with nothing more than mowed lawns and a couple of shrubs. I appreciate that their owners are mindful of keeping their yards in good order.
But I always hope they one day they’ll have an epiphany, and realize that cultivating more could provide more pleasure for themselves and for passersby. They might find that fooling around with plants both calms and enlivens their spirits. Maybe it would occur to them that convenience can be the enemy of creativity and social connection.
The front yards I like the most are tended by people who count growing plants among their close friends. I walked past one such neighbor who has a big collection of dahlia starts, which will be glorious in summer and fall. As I paused to admire them, I looked up into a tree full of figs on their way to being sweet.
Everyone reveals something about themselves in their front yard. And taken together, our neighborhood’s yards, in all their diversity, are evidence of a culture of mellow mutual acceptance. We are from different generations, different backgrounds, and different interests and aspirations. I think it’s safe to say we all like it this way.
And at the beginning of June, the grass is green in everybody’s yards.
Jill Severn writes from her home in Olympia, where she grows vegetables, flowers, and a small flock of chickens. She loves conversation among gardeners. Start one by emailing her at jill@theJOLTnews.com
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