Haven

 

        By sheer dumb luck, when we moved to this condo we hit the jackpot as far as a backyard went.

 It truly was luck since there were only about 3 for sale in the complex and this was the one we could afford.

 Although the outsides are very Stepford-like, appearing to be the same,  the units can vary wildly – some only about 1,500 square feet to others that are massive, running to well over 3,000, the same size as a full-blown house. We’re satisfied with ours, which lands in the middle.  

 

          But my walk yesterday reminded me how lucky we are with our huge backyard, even if it is shared. It feels like our own, though, since I’m the only one of our three-unit row that ever even walks there.

 

          I got nosy and peered in back of the communal mailboxes and saw that the people across the street from us only have scraggly pine trees in back, barely concealing the units to their rear. They also have minimal land, and what’s there is covered not by grass, but pine needles.

 

    

      I’ve been told the couple in our place before us were gardeners, and I can see their stamp on the property. Some of it has been taken over by the woods, like these mysterious plants with the purple undersides, and the azaleas at the edge that now never bloom, but I’m still making pies in the spring from the rhubarb against the house.

 

    

But many of the plants they left behind are coming into their own now, the huge
rhododendron against the woods (behind which I hide my compost pile) decided to bloom this year, right after the mountain laurel. 

Most of the plants around the butternut tree are original, and the daylilies and astilbe are busy showing off. I’m waiting to see if the hydrangea will do anything, and there is an unnamed tall yellow flower that may or may not do something at the end of July.

Yesterday, while I sat on the porch to read my book, the breeze blew, the hummingbirds zipped in and out, the turkeys strutted by, and I could hear a barred owl calling “who cooks for you?”