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