Friday, April 24, 2009

You can't kill Libby's Garden...

Just heard something that tickled me.

A friend of mine was looking at houses, and came across my parent's old house.

You've all heard me talk of my mother, Libby McGeary, who was a kind of master's gardener to master gardeners. When she died, we all knew that no one would possibly be able to maintain her garden. We tried to give 'Libby's' plants to friends and family to remember her by, but the vast majority was plowed under by the new owners.

They built three houses on the same property. Cut down the trees.

I've only been up there once, because it's a bit dispiriting. But I felt that once we sold the property, it wasn't ours anymore. The new owners could do anything they wanted. That's just the way it is.

Anyway, my friend was talking to the current owner, who said:

"It's the strangest thing. Every year these exotic plants pop up all over the property...

"I root them out every year, and the next year another batch pops up."

Ah, ha! You can't kill Libby's garden!

She planted for 40 years up there, layer after layer, row upon row, bulbs and roots and seeds and shoots and god knows what. She'd move them, and replant them, and take cuttings, and then add another layer of compost and soil and another layer of plants.

They were the healthiest plants you ever saw.

The soil must be absolutely permeated with seeds. Springing to life.

The soil is so lush, that any seed that landed would think it found heaven.

It's just is so damned apt.....karma, nature reasserting itself. Libby's personality can't be so easily bulldozed.

Too bad they can't let the plants be.

2 comments:

Bewert said...

Damn, Dunc, nicest thing I've read in some time.

Bewert said...

Just catching up and have to comment on the buyy local post.

1) Re: What does Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, do for our community?

Nothing. But he does a hell of a lot for teh Seattle area. The key to an areas prosperity is ongoing sales to those oustide of the community, thus bringing a flow of currency into the area. I know I've preached this before, but it bears repeating. Though EDCO touts this constantly, it doesn't act much on it. Bend's latest bubble was built on bringing money into the area on a one-time basis, through RE, and that doesn't count all the idiots buying multiple homes as an investment.

2) RDC is full of it trying to defend Walmart. Multinational corps, whether Walmart or Amazon, are built upon using their size to undercut and destroy local merchants. They don't pay any sales tax in Oregon, and often negotiate RE tax discounts based on the low-paying jobs they bring to town. Jobs taken by those laid off by the local merchants they have destroyed.

>>>rant off<<<