Hey Suzy,
I need help. I am not a person who regularly tends garden. In fact, I let my backyard vegetation do whatever it wants to do. Right now, it’s playing hide-the-various-raccoon-families. But recently, I was thinking that perhaps I, too — along with my pets — can enjoy the yard. My problem is the yard’s terra firma. See, it’s an enclosed square yard but it rises up in the back right hand corner where it comes to a point, whereas the back left hand corner drops to a level lower than the entire yard. Mid-yard it comes to a sort of lopsided small rise wherein it begins to drop toward the house. Is this making any sense??? Rocks jut out here and there at the high points. Oaks cover the place so the yard is completely shaded. Directly behind my yard there is a sharp drop to a creek. By the way, I live in the center of town. What can I do so that I can add some order and peace to this chaos so I too can use the yard?
— Lou C.
Dear Lou,
I say, “Embrace the chaos.” (Sounds like some kind of touchy-feely business management technique, huh?) People all over Austin are paying big bucks to have their St. Augustine plains re-transformed into miniature Hill Country scapes. And you, you lucky cuss, you’re already there without benefit of bulldozers and limp-wristed landscape architects. Perhaps you would consider simply navigating the chaos, rather than transforming it. Since you profess an aversion to (or at least disinterest in) gardening, think of your backyard project more decoratively than horticulturally. Imagine it’s just a big room with a high blue ceiling and lots of oversized house plants. Begin inching out into the hinterlands with paths (hallways?) leading to little clearings (rooms or seating arrangements?) into which you can place the funkiest benches, tables, and chairs, found objets d’art that weather with taste and style, and multiple bird/raccoon feeders. Make the paths out of a variety of materials: decomposed granite can lead to brick which can change to stone. Navigate the hills with those kinds of stairs/paths you find in state parks: cedar logs laid as the stair risers with the steps themselves filled with gravel or decomposed granite or compacted soil. (These turn into cool waterfalls when it rains.) String lights in the trees. Hang a swing so that it will arch precariously over your steepest slope. Collect big rocks on your road trips and vacations. Bring in flags, mosaics, water fountains, whirligigs, concrete statues. Go crazy. Become a neighborhood character. Train the raccoons to dance. Eventually, quit your job and stay home so you can sell photos of yourself in your fantastic garden to the tourists that will eventually descend on your wonderland.
Send your wonder-filled questions to me at: Suzebe@aol.com or snail mail ’em to: The Austin Chronicle, PO Box 49066, Austin, TX 78765.
This article appears in December 12 • 1997 and December 12 • 1997 (Cover).