Green Thumb

     There are people who just naturally have a green thumb and then there’s me. I have more of a black thumb. Once I brought some houseplants home and my husband told them, “Oh no! Run! Run! This is the plant graveyard!” I couldn’t argue much with that reputation.  

     But, my thumb has slowly been getting greener. There is one small South facing window in the house where there has been significant plant life for over a decade. Several African violets, jade plants, and orchids are doing quite well, thank you, on my kitchen window sill.

That narrow 5” shelf is the one green zone in our house.

     Outside, our yard is heavily wooded so it’s not ideal for grass or plants that like sun. Moss, ferns and Rhododendrons are happy campers under the Douglas Firs and Cedars. A couple of hardy Forsythia bushes in rare sunny spots are also thriving.

     One of our “eccentric," actually rude, neighbors thinks her yard extends inside our side of the fence between us. Earlier this year she decided to replace her fence. For the 17 years we’ve lived here that fence hasn’t moved, so as far as we’re concerned, that is the property line. She claims they had to put the fence inside her property line because there’s a terrace there.

     For all the years we’ve been here, she has never known our names. She just peers over the fence and makes generic, rude comments like, “Hi neighbor! It looks like a jungle over there!” This time she told us the dates when the fence crew would be working—a good thing since we’ve got dogs.

     A week before the new fence was scheduled to go up, I heard Kona barking like crazy. I hustled outside to see what was going on. The neighbor was trying to come into our yard and telling Kona, “Nice dog! Nice dog!” I corralled Kona up on our deck. Who is stupid enough to keep approaching a barking dog that is obviously guarding her territory?

     I stopped letting Kona out into our yard. It’s a good thing because for the entire week leading up to the fence being built I looked out to see Her Rudeness perched up on the wall on our side of the fence, weeding. Weeding, and throwing it all into our yard on top of our rose bushes, hydrangeas, etc. -–our “jungle” landscaping.

     We were angry about the mess she was raining down into our yard, in addition to not being able to let our dogs out unsupervised. I wanted to ask her when she was coming over to get all her “weeds” that she dumped in our yard, but John didn’t think it was worth it. He was recovering from back surgery. So I didn’t say anything.

Piles of yard waste "donated" by our neighbor.

     The work crew came and put the fence up. It’s taller than the old fence which is fine with me. She told John that she doesn’t want to have to look at her neighbors. Did she forget that he’s one of those neighbors? I agree, I don’t want to see her either.

     I really didn’t appreciate sitting at my kitchen table and looking at the piles of yard debris while I ate. John couldn’t clean it up with his back recovering. I couldn’t take it for long. I dragged our yard waste bin around the house and started clearing the mess out. In March I started filling the bin up, and wheeling it out to the curb every other week.

    By mid-April I had shoveled and raked most of the weeds into a manageable pile that I could load into the yard waste bin every other Thursday.  Luckily, in May, our city has a Spring Cleanup. You are allowed to put extra bags of yard waste out and they will collect it for free.  In the end, I put a total of 8 bins worth of yard waste out to be collected. Thanks neighbor!

Another full yard waste bin.

     It must’ve been the weeks of sweaty, muscle-straining yard work during the unusually warm and sunny Spring weather that eventually burned off my anger and tamed it into annoyance.  My favorite gardening tool is a 28" pair of loppers. I named her Cyndi—Cyndi Lopper. 

Cyndi Lopper

Bond. James Bond.

I named her little 15" friend James—James Bond. Together we hacked through the overgrowth in that small area along the side of the house. Once it was cleared out, it dawned on me that maybe the rude one had actually done us an unintentional favor.

Fence up and piles of weeds cleared.

     After taking a few deep breaths, I could envision a tiny oasis of a garden tucked into the terraces. All it needed was a few more rose bushes, some heather, and a couple more blueberry bushes to replace some that we lost. Somehow the vision grew almost as big as the weeds that I had cleared out. I would go to the store to get groceries and end up with hydrangeas and fuschias in my basket.

Fuschias

I went to get something at the hardware store and pushed my cart out loaded with tomato plants and organic herbs. Funky yard art beckoned from store shelves.

Froggie does some Zumba moves.

Plant food replaced my grocery list.

      Our daughter gave me a gardenia for Mother’s Day.

Gardenia.

A friend who also started gardening gave me some lilac starts, and later some jasmine.

Lilac cuttings.

Jasmine cuttings.

I gave her some Vinca (or Periwinkle) ground cover that I had plenty of.

Periwinkle (Vinca)

I took one of the dogs to the vet and someone there with a green thumb had put out corn plants to take for a donation to their “buddy” fund. John brought baby kale starts home from work. Another neighbor has offered me more hydrangeas in the fall. Spring fever has lasted into summer and I haven’t even been to the farmer’s market yet!

     The transformation is complete. I’m as shocked as John is. I’m a gardener! Admittedly, I’m winging it and also relying a lot on information from the internet, and from local gardening columnist Marianne Binetti. Some of my methods are no-brainers. I put the food crops in containers up on the deck because they’re easier to maintain that way plus a much longer trip for slugs to make. 

Herb garden.

Four mint varieties.

     Some of my methods are a bit unorthodox. I recently found that the leading pest of corn in our area is a certain Golden Doodle who thinks corn stalks are chew toys. I considered buying chicken wire and fencing off that corner of the deck. Then in a lazy moment of not wanting to go to the store, I thought, “What do I have a lot of lying around here?” Flash—fabric!  I strung some clothesline across the deck and clothes pinned a few yards of bright tropical fabric to it.

Tomatoes and corn behind the makeshift curtain. 

So far the curtain is working and I’m happy to report that all the plants are alive!

     I love walking out on our deck and snipping some green onions, parsley, rosemary or basil to cook with, or a sprig of fresh mint to put in my iced tea.

Tomatoes!

There are tomatoes and blueberries plumping up, and strawberries ripening in the strawberry pot I unearthed during the cleanup.

Blueberries

Strawberries!

Now in the morning when I’m eating breakfast I look out the window at my little Garden of Weedin’ and start the day with a smile and a green thumb’s up.

Laura Keolanui Stark has turned over a new leaf. She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.