Edited by Matt Schrunk
I rounded the corner of my building to find a father and his young daughter picking flowers in my garden. As he reached for my one and only lily, I hollered, “Wait! Please don’t take that one.” Someone steals that lily every year without fail.A flash of guilt and embarrassment crossed his face. “I’m so sorry,” he said as he offered my flowers back to me. “I didn’t think anyone lived here.”
“That’s okay,” I said unconvincingly. “It happens all the time.”
My dream is a two-acre cottage garden—or maybe a potager since I’m more attracted to the French countryside than dreary England—with a stone house and some chickens.
My reality is a concrete warehouse in downtown Portland.
It is difficult to say exactly how I got here. My dog, Ollie, and I were living a perfectly happy life in my Northeast Portland home. We had a big, private backyard with room for raised beds, perennial borders, a grape arbor, and enough lawn for the big dog to romp.
Then my man, Andy, bought a warehouse in Goose Hollow—a hidden neighborhood close to downtown that is populated with old Victorians, college housing for Portland State students, and small rental houses. I went to check out his new purchase, took a look around, and said, “Good luck with this, doll. Come visit when you want to return to civilization.” Less than two months later, I rented out my house and moved in.
For the first six months in the warehouse, we were under construction. I was so busy putting up sheetrock and painting that I barely noticed we had soil along the south side of the building. But by June, my gardening jones kicked in, and I went outside to size up my plot.
Andy helped me clear the weeds and trash from the parking strip and the adjacent two-and-a-half-foot swath of land between the sidewalk and the building. The soil was rock-hard, but we kept digging. During the excavation phase, we unearthed buckets of glass—mostly broken beer bottles—but we also found a little treasure. We filled a bowl with all the marbles that were buried in the dirt, and I uncovered an unusual looking coin. After a little investigation, I was happy to discover that we were in possession of an 1891 Seated Liberty dime worth about four bucks on eBay. Our efforts were already paying off.
I’d never created a garden from scratch—only molded an existing garden to suit my taste. I was in the unique position of executing a vision. Except that my vision didn’t include thin ribbons of soil and a monstrous, pea green wall for a backdrop.
I first made two raised beds for vegetable starts and planted some herbs. I took my best friend’s advice and added roses—a cottage garden classic. I built rebar trellises to support the climbing roses and clematis, and incorporated spring bulbs, lavender, iris, peonies, and delphinium into my garden plan. That first year, there was plenty of space for annuals—cosmos, zinnias, snapdragons, pansies, and I left a few holes for tomato cages among the flowers and herbs.
I paid particular attention to plant varieties and sizes. It had never been much of a concern before, but now I looked for vertical, arching growth. Nothing could mature at more than three feet wide, maybe four if I kept it pruned back or allowed it to overflow onto the sidewalk.
Who knew the site would be ideal for a garden? Even in that first year, we had loads of flowers and vegetables—lettuce, tomatoes, dahlias, huge sunflowers, cucumbers—and best of all, we didn’t have to mow the lawn.
My favorite part of the day was getting home from work and taking a garden stroll—usually with a glass of rosé in one hand, the hose in the other. I’d walk up and down the sidewalk checking out new growth and taking note of vegetables that were almost ready for harvest.
As the season progressed, I met several people who told me they went out of their way to walk by the garden. Our neighbors were grateful that we’d “transformed the garbage dump on the corner,” and I was thanked for my beautiful flowers and hard work. I would find myself in lengthy discussions with passersby about plant varieties and aphid deterrents as I was watering or weeding. From inside the warehouse, we’d see people slow down to smell a flower or examine a bloom.
Then my first ripe tomato was swiped. We had poachers, but it didn’t stop at the tomatoes. My shrubs were trodden, flowers ripped at the stem, pots smashed. Poor parallel parkers, crashing skateboarders, and car doors have all taken their toll.
One afternoon, I looked out the office window and saw a woman bent over my herbs—too close to just be admiring my mint. This time I was going to catch someone stealing from my garden red-handed. I ran out the front door and rounded the corner. There she was holding a huge bouquet of parsley in one hand, a pair of scissors in the other. I stood there dumbfounded—she’d whacked the whole plant down to the ground. She just smiled, waved the bunch of parsley at me in a gesture of thanks, and continued up the sidewalk. I looked down at the damage—yet another casualty in my urban garden.
I came to dread the weekends—Saturday nights especially—as the destruction rate increased with the alcohol consumption of the students who lived in the high-rise across from us. One morning I spotted an eight-foot sunflower that had been uprooted and discarded halfway up the street.
I felt betrayed and violated. The garden was beloved by many, but just one careless or selfish person could do so much damage.
Still, the garden has survived the onslaught year after year, and despite everything, it’s thriving. The roses and clematis spill from their trellises. The perennials have mingled and woven together to form a long line of color up the sidewalk. There’s less room for annuals, but I always save space for the tomatoes.
The vandalism has continued. The building was tagged a couple of times. Dogs poop in my lettuce and pee on my parsley. We learned to anchor the potted plants or weight them with rocks so they’re too heavy to cart off.
We also learned how to share. Last fall I was cleaning up the garden—removing the spent annuals and dried up foliage—when one of the transient guys who frequents the neighborhood came by. He was sorry to see that I’d pulled out the tomato plants—he admitted that he’d been taking them all summer and was looking forward to those last green ones still on the vine. At least he was honest. Most people weren’t so considerate.
After six years, I’d finally become resigned to expecting a certain amount of loss. Then last year, we experienced a new twist in our garden saga. People started leaving “gifts.”
The first thing to show up was a perfectly spaced row of tiny sand dollars lining the edge of the lettuce bed. Then larger sand dollars dotted the soil. Clearly, someone in the neighborhood had gone to the beach.
The anonymous gifting escalated through the summer. Someone, perhaps new to glass blowing, left broken glass sculptures—colorful, swirling pieces that fit beautifully among the flowers. A kitschy figurine of cooing owls appeared, carefully placed between the strawberry pot and the yellow columbine. I imagined one of the college kids shopping for dorm furniture at Goodwill and buying it as a joke. I found it endearing but also a little creepy, and I was relieved when the owls were swallowed up by the maturing foliage.
We got candles, a fairy-princess wand, a broken drumstick, a plastic turtle, a ceramic sake flask, dozens of cocktail mermaids hanging from stems and vines, and doll-sized china dishes, set up for a tea party.
I don’t know why the garden was being decorated, but I prefer to think of it as a token of appreciation. Nor am I sure which was the bigger test of my inner control freak—the theft or the gifting. But I decided the little additions beat the hell out of having my stuff stolen.
I’d like to think that as the years have passed, I’ve matured along with the garden. When I started this project, it didn’t occur to me that I was sharing a public space. But I’ve come to accept the inevitable annoyances of having an urban garden. I remind myself every spring when the irresistible red tulips surface that flowers will go missing and footprints will stray through the beds. I’ve also learned a lesson about supply and demand and increased my tomato crop. I should definitely plant more lilies.
It has been a long—and often painful—journey learning how to forgive flower thieves, squatting dogs, tomato snatchers, and pot smashers. But as the gardening season approaches, I’m eager to start digging, and I look forward to the surprises that await.
***
Kelley Dodd is a designer and sometimes writer living in Goose Hollow with her husband, Andy, and their dog, Ollie. Her garden isn't much to brag about at the moment, but just wait until June. She can be contacted at krdoddpdx@gmail.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment