The Shift of a Sweet Scent

There was a little dry rot in the top railing of my deck that needed to be repaired. It is a fungus much like mushrooms that can spread through the wood. Like termites it turns wood to sawdust. The carpenter dude came to look to see what needed replacing and my fifteen year old Confederate Jasmine Vine that was going to get a little haircut ended up being completely removed from the railings of my deck.

Long ago one of these vines had been planted on a pine tree in the house where I grew up. Thirty five years later when my sister sold the house that vine had long since climbed to the top of that eighty foot tall pine tree and grown to a diameter of ten feet around. Every spring it was a solid white mass of heavenly scented bloom that people wandered the neighborhood looking for the source.

Last month when I went home I drove by our old house and there was not a tree, not a bush, not a blade of grass left in the garden where I started. It was a dirt parking lot from end to end. The pine tree and its scented cloak were gone.

Every spring my Confederate Jasmine Vine on Maui bloomed its sweet scent for me. It cloaked my deck and living room in privacy and blocked the view of my neighbor below who likes to store his overflowing collectibles at the top of his driveway right up to the property line in two storage sheds and one hideous plastic house.

















There was a house under that vine. It always had threatened to engulf the house and I had to trim it three times a year to keep it a bay. Lately it had taken to regularly grabbing hold of the patio chairs. I was not as shocked by its removal as I thought I would be. Though I am feeling a bit exposed and left out in the blazing sun at the moment, I did gain a great view of my own garden from up on the deck. Now it will taunt me even more to get out there and get busy.















At first I thought I would let the vine grow back, but much smaller this time. It will quickly. My landlord fussed at me about having to do repairs on a sixteen year old house for the first time and I had second thoughts.

Things are changing for me. I am pretty sure I have made a decision to move and my garden will have to be dismantled. It is not a garden for the timid or the uninterested. It will have to be simplified and made ready for a mow, blow and go crew.

I will buy some heavy curtains to replace the sheer ones I have now to block the sun from heating up the house on this full sun western exposure and dig up the Confederate Jasmine Vine. To everything there is a season and the sweet scent has moved on with the wind.