In my last post, I began the story of my 2017 Summer Garden. But the story began at least a few years earlier, when my very shade loving garden was taken away by the loss of one large pine tree.
The electric power company had come to fulfill a promise they made in the winter before to take down tree limbs threatening our power lines along the creek/ditch at the back of our lot. Over the years the ditch had eroded into the back yard, leaving many roots of what was formerly planted by previous owners as a hedge. It was full of berries, good for birds, but gangly if not trimmed every year. But, also, wild bushes and weeds had taken hold, especially along the length of our part of the creek, and of the house below us. Some invasive trees that propagated from seeds and from their roots, had sent up new versions of themselves everywhere. They were invading my yard having grown on both sides of the bank, until they reached the wires running the length of the ditch. Several old trees existing from before we bought the property, also had limbs hanging over the wires, and were a huge weight upon them in snow and ice.
I knew the power company was coming, but not when. And I never understood that they had rights to our property up to 15 feet on either side of the wires. They could destroy anything they so desired within that footage if they needed to get to those wires. But I never saw them on other people's property. Just mine. And then I realized they didn't mess with yards which had fences. It was the one thing they could not destroy to get to their wires. So since mine didn't have a fence, it was their preferred entry to the ditch. They brought huge trucks and drove them up our driveway and pushed over anything in their way to reach the wires for repairs, etc. Since a transformer was also on the pole directly behind my house, although across the narrow ditch, they accessed it from my house as well.
In the early years, since my trees were a threat, I usually didn't mind that they pulled into the yard. Until the year they decided to do whatever they please, and turned my life around. We returned one night, late, after dark, to a note on our front door, which read that someone would call us about the brush in the back yard, and having it removed. Not knowing what to expect, we couldn't wait til dawn to investigate, fearing a tree had fallen. We took flashlights and shined them into the yard from our second story deck. We gasped as we scanned the space, which was notably empty in the area where our pine tree once stood. All that was there now - a tall thin tree with absolutely no limbs.
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| My perfectly straight tree, not leaning. |
The limbs lay in a huge pile in our neighbor's yard. We loved that tree, because it was a great draw for woodpeckers of every kind. We were so proud of our ability to sit on the deck and watch all kinds, including sapsuckers, pecking along it's bark. Nevermore...
The following days were a blur of negotiations and restitution seeking. And we mourned the loss of our pine tree, which the arbor company hired by the electric company, insisted was leaning over their lines. Well, since I take pictures constantly of my changing gardens, I had pics of that very site including the tree, because I had just completed a small cleanup and replanting of the shade garden beneath it. I had piled pine cones at it's base from another kind of pine for mulch.
And planted a small shade loving Hosta all around its base. I had separated and spread my Aguga, hoping its small blue blooms would cover the area in the center by spring.
And I had pruned a wild white rose bush Jimmy had planted, and replanted daffodils in 3 spots on the end of the bed. There also was a trumpet vine I wished to train onto an arch the following year. I took pictures, thinking at the time, that this would be a self-sustaining garden that would require little maintenance the following year. Now it lay buried beneath saw dust, and limbs, and had been trampled into the mud from rains earlier in the day. At dawn I just stood and cried, and was anxious for days to get to some of it, get it uncovered and see what could be rescued.
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| Newly planted Hostas, Celosia, and Ajuga were crushed. |
After, calling in EPB people who could make restitution, we finally agreed that they could give us coupons to buy new sun loving plants to replace my shade loving plants, which were exposed to the point of killing them. They wanted to leave the stripped pine for us to deal with, and we were adamant they take it completely down now. I refused to leave it up to die and fall on children playing in the ditch. Or to leave it to our expense. We proved that the tree wasn't dying as they said it was. Only lower limbs had died back as that kind of tree was prone to do when surrounded by other trees. We proved it wasn't leaning as they claimed by my pictures, and we knew that they owed us more. They just wanted a place for their truck..I am sure.
Jimmy suggested the tree was valued at about $6,000, off the top of his head, but we later discovered that had we sold it for pulp wood, it actually was worth about that much. A tall straight pine could actually be used for pole wood or even straight lumber. So they asked what would make us happy that wasn't money. We took advantage of the offer, and had bad trees removed, and bad limbs pruned away from trees elsewhere in the back yard. We also demanded they remove the stump. This giant clean up would have cost us about $4,000, so we were ahead, OK with the agreement. But there we were with a back yard that had been ravaged by the work they did to clean up all the trees, and the work they did to remove limbs and trees along the ditch. They had destroyed all the work I had done for years to make my back yard into a shade garden.
Over the years some things in the yard had gotten away from us, since our jobs zapped our time and energy, we seldom had time to care for ivy gardens and other vining things. The vines had threatened 3 of our trees, by growing up the bark, and strangling their roots. We had been helpless up to this point to reverse the damage. One of the trees, which was near where we had also run new sewage lines, had sustained root damage as well. It slowly, over several years, dropped limbs, becoming totally overgrown by ivy. I worried often about children being in the yard, afraid of the limbs falling, and killing someone. Then one day, just as I entered the house after having been in the greenhouse, a ground shaking jar, and a loud explosive sounding bump, sent me running back out the door. As I feared, I saw the tree had fallen toward the house. The cable lines had caught it, breaking out the top of the tree. The result was the top folded back onto itself, thereby totally keeping it from hitting the house. It had missed falling on me, passing by it from the greenhouse, by about a half minute. I was profoundly moved at the fact that I was actually alive, and could have been dead had I hesitated in the greenhouse even a tiny bit.
Thankful this tree no longer was a threat, we had begun to plan to have work done on the other trees. But what had happened, was the Lord took it into his own hands, and brought in the "tree people" to take care of our problem. Initially angry, then hurt and mourning, we finally realized how blessed we had been, and were thankful. Jimmy chopped the ivy roots and pulled it away from our one surviving tree, and we hired one of the people from the arborists cleaning the ditch, to remove all limbs affecting our own power and cable lines going to the house. We then took a step back to wonder what on earth would we do now, to make our back yard a decent place again? The answer was take advantage of the sun. After struggling for years to add color to the shade, now the sun would do exactly that if we were willing to put in the work. I never dreamed how much work it would be.
As we shopped around to see who would honor our coupons from the EPB, and decide what plants to best use them on, we discovered the coupons would never pay for enough plants to replace what we lost. And what we would buy required a new kind of environment. Better soil being primary and basic. The change over from shade to sun garden and the rescue of our remaining trees had all been a gift from God. And I suppose I had come to expect that the whole process should be provided by God himself. It was he who set us on this journey, I argued. Jimmy was ready to spend money to just get something done. I felt we needed the money elsewhere. So the question became, do we wait for everything to be free, or spend money?
I won't tell the story here, but the house next door was a huge part of the free thinking thing as well. It had burned years earlier, and stood empty, drawing animals like rats and raccoons all the while. At the time of our tree fiasco, a builder was restoring it to be flipped. A city inspector had required that all burned wood had to be removed from the inside of the house. If only a small end of it was charred, out it must go. Jimmy saw several long planks in the dumpster one day, and asked if he could rescue the remaining unburned wood from the planks. They were proud to have the extra dumpster space and as long as he promised not to injure himself on the protruding nails etc, he was allowed to get it. But someone wisely realized how improbable it was that he wouldn't get hurt climbing into a dumpster, so to limit their liability, they began tossing the wood they removed out the window toward our house. Jimmy collected it and began removing nails, and sawing off the burned ends. Our stack of lumber grew, and once Jimmy got as much as he thought he would need, was ready to not collect more. But when another pile was lying there next day, he questioned me to know if I had any use for more wood. Free wood, to do anything I wanted? You bet I did. I wanted to make outdoor furniture! It might not last as long as treated lumber, but it would not have chemicals and would last a few years at least. I certainly wanted it.
It set me up. however, to expect that God was making this whole garden thing an entirely free enterprise. But as I explained in my last blog, he had other plans. Plans that I learn that he provided in abundance, but he also was going to require we understand the value of some well placed investments, of not only time, but also money. A large part of the dirt was not going to be free. But I hadn't yet understood why. Why the dirt? I expected to have to put some money into plants, but they were something we sort of incorporated into our budget for years. Why was dirt an important thing to have to pay for? Well, that will be Chapter 3, won't it?
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