Not So Long Ago

Not so long ago a garden bench sat at the edge of a variegated St. Augustine lawn. The bench was nestled in a bed of Ruellia brittoniana and shaded by the branches of a 'Gwen' Avocado, Persea americana, an avocado with a dwarf weeping habit of growth.

The bench was a wonderful place to sit at the end of the day. It looked out over a large part of the garden with the extra deep beds filled with abundant tropical flowers. The flower beds formed and surrounded an oval shaped variegated lawn. The western sky and the sunset hues filled a large chunk of the view out of the secluded oasis made private by the lush foliage. Large volcanic boulders stood upright in a straight line down the center of the lawn for its entire length. These boulders echoed the ancient monolithic stones of Europe and the British and Irish Isles. These stones spoke of Hawaiian and Polynesian structures made of abundant volcanic rock. From the helicopters that flew overhead quite often, the stones may have appeared as the bundled chromosomes in a lawn that was shaped like a sperm cell. The main oval lawn was connected to a wiggling tail of grass that wrapped around two sides of the house. On full moon nights the white grass glowed in the dark.

There is one thing you can count on in the garden. Nothing ever stays the same. Change is a given. The bench is still very close to its original location, but it lists to one side and is in danger of collapsing if any weight is placed on its slats.














True to form the Avocado 'Gwen' has stayed short and wide with drooping branches ladened with fruit year after year. It arms stretched out and over the comfortable bench and then touched the ground closing off the view of the western sky. The variegated St. Augustine lawn started turning yellow and began to disappear one year. It was completely gone before I found out that the Florida Chinch Bug had made it to Hawaii and was feasting on its favorite food source. The Centipede grass filled in and the lawn turned a basic green.
















'Gwens' neighbors, a Philippine Poinsettia, a Golden Shower Tree (Koelreuteria bipinnata) and two Manila Palms climbed for the sun and the sky above while 'Gwen' stretched out below. Beside her and underneath the taller neighbors a thicket of Red Ginger formed a wall along the edge of the garden.














Today there was another beheading for the sake of "The View". I climbed into the top of the Golden Shower Tree and shortened its height by a good ten feet. I was fortunate to have been able to see the golden yellow flowers followed by the rich pink pods before I chopped off its head. The deep pink pods had begun to turn brown and the seasonal display of red, white and sky blue would soon be gone.
















I'd rather not mention how I came to plant an obscure to Hawaii Golden Shower Tree in my garden. Any guilt I may have felt was significantly lessened when I discovered that the Iao Valley was filled with these trees. I saw them for sale in a nursery one time and was told they had come from the Big Island. Apparently there are many gardeners who think alike.

The now plain green oval part of the lawn was later covered in a heavy duty landscape fabric to prevent weed growth and a nursery of potted plants was placed on top. Only the wiggly tail of grass remains. The landscape fabric was laid around the monolithic stones. A path follows beside them.

One day soon the potted plants will all be sold. The fabric will be pulled up and a lawn allowed to return. The deep beds will be thinned and pushed back to the property line. The stones have grown heavier with time. They will remain in place. Their significance to be contemplated or dismissed by the next people to place a bench on the edge of the lawn.