Sans Flora: Fauna

I used to have a garden.

It was small, but it was marvelous. I used to grow pineapple sage and five kinds of rosemary. I used to haul armfuls of French lavender into the kitchen, dropping little purple blossoms on the floor along the way like a flower girl in a Pagan wedding. I used to put geranium cuttings in an old, earthenware vase and place it on the kitchen counter. Then, after a week or two, I'd plant them in the garden.

I used to feel somewhat smug about my white roses.

I used to open the Burpee catalog and actually consider purchasing heirloom moonflower seedlings. I used go to the Huntington Garden sales, browse the abundant selection along the tree-lined path with other smiling plant lovers in straw hats, feeling just like a subject in Seurat painting. Later, lovingly, I would place local succulents into Mexican clay pots, and top them with a few river rocks.

I used to point out to visiting friends that I had monkey grass in the flower beds, but not just any monkey grass, I had "black dragon" monkey grass, and I even knew its official name. (Ophiopogon planiscapus Arabicus.) Okay, so the black monkey grass was planted by the previous homeowner but it was otherworldly cool, and it was now mine and I had managed not to kill it even after several years in the house with a high needs preschooler who never napped.

Well, it's been a busy year and something just had to give. Now, someone else has taken over the gardening. I've got to hand it to her ... she's great with the digging part of it. There's no need for that Smith & Hawken rototiller with Misty around. And, although misguided, she enriches the garden daily, even though she seems to think the brick patio is what needs fertilizing.