**before I got further, I should mention that the front yard is stunning as well. So many times when driving home I marveled at its beauty - but that was a public beauty. The backyard was private, it was our little secret.***
The garden was many things over the years - from a fantasy land, to an art piece, to a place of a lot of work (I did help mulch, and trim, and plant, and cut-down and what-not). But more than anything, it was the defining factor of what made our house special. I guess my Mom inherited the green thumb from her Mom, but in reality she made it something her own. It got semi-passed down to my Sister and I, but there's no mistaking my Mom's brilliance for keeping things flowering, prospering and alive, compared to my Sister and my feeble attempts to do the same.
She toiled in that space for decades, turning it little by little into something worthy of a magazine. It was a lot of work, a labor of love. Be it her planting and caring, and my dad mulching and watering, and at times me helping by not killing things. The garden doesn't become this amazing panoply of beauty overnight. In fact, it grew from essentially nothing in 1993 when we moved in, to something absurdly beautiful and abundant around 2013-14 or so. That was probably the peak, with some of the older trees needing cutting down around that time. Those times cutting down the trees were of course painful, aside from when it was fun to use a chain-saw for a bit, but small miseries, preceding the big misery now of not having it to call mine or ours anymore.
In my childhood, it was an incredible land of wonder and fantasy. I didn't build forts and stuff inside. Yes, I contorted the basement into various sports areans and courts, but the real imagination of my life was in that backyard. Pretending to be the statue of liberty standing on top of the slide. Playing various little games roaming around its wide expanse. It is hard to remember those days really at this point, with us putting in a patio in around 2003 or so. More time has been spent living with the patio than we did without it, but those early memories were so special in that time when it was all still growing.
The trees, the plants, the roses, the flowers, the little nooks and crannies we built around its perimeter with benches and all of that was yet to come. It was still developing and nascent when I was a child. The one part that was fairly constant and similar from 2000 to 2020 was the vegetable garden. That was also probably the part I was more interested in, more active in than any other. I helped plant some of those seeds, doing my part living with the worms and soil as a child. Picking berries and corn and sunflowers. In older years, I left the planting to my Mom, who was far more successful at turning seeds into plants, but helped constructing makeshift wire canopies and boxes and so much more.
Of course, in my time as a nascent home chef, this abundance was so enriching as well - whenever I wanted a spice, I just had to step outside into one of the pots and snip some off, be it mint, sage, rosemary, thyme. During the summers adn falls, the Friday cooking was so indebted to whatever produce came otu of that garden, from berries, to peppers to adorable little kabucha squashes. I'm already pushing my Mom to continue the vegetable garden in teh new home, probably one of the few things small and inoffensive enough to get away with building quickly.
Going back to my life and connection to the garden, from pretending to be statues, it turned into more a place of solace and peace. We ahd this one tree that I loved more than any other, because it grew so broad and wise and dense, with its red leaves. It provided a perfect canopy about halfway down the length of the yard on the left side. For so many years I would take a plush chair from the patio and put it underneath that tree - be it to read, to watch movies or TV on my laptop, or to just doze off. Granted, it rarely started out being a situation where I was hoping to doze off, but the serenity, the chirps of the birds, the light breeze and the brilliant shade of the red tree was one of those memories I'll never let go.
Granted, technically we cut down that tree about six years ago. What we never stopped, even until our last weekend in the house, was sitting on that patio and just living life. Whether it was with my family, or just by myself, there was no place I loved in our house more than this. The view of the expansive backyard from my particular favorite outdoor rocking chair may be my single favorite view in the world - the bountiful hydrangea bush, the other series of flowers in pots or beds. The vast expanse with large trees in the back. It was all so beautiful.
And it was also such a memorable place for us as a family. So many spring, summer and fall nights spend on that patio just being with each other, chatting the night away. So many great discussions and music and food and drinks shared between each other on it. From earlier years eating ribs or burgers off the grill on the table in the patio corner, to later years enjoying glass of wine or scotch or an aperitif eating snacks before heading inside for dinner. Finally the last few years, after amateur stargazing became more popular, to go out in the backyard late at night, even in the dead of winter, and just stare upwards. Our backyard deserving of the brilliance of the illuminated night sky, just as it was so deserving of the cloudless skies during the days.
Like any good garden, we were also joined by so many animals in celebrating it. This was admittedly a lot more of a delight for me than my Mom, who saw the deer and rabbits (mostly, really, the deer) as her enemies, here to rob us of the beauty of her work. But I always saw it more as these animals agreeing in how amazing the yard was. A day never went by without seeing a bunny. Even on the last few days there were 3-4 a day, including little bunny pairs hopping and chasing each other around the crevasses adn corners. Deer was less common this year, but in past we had everything from families, to once discovering a little fawn in the grass, which was luckily found by its parents. There were of course squirrels, and a rare groundhog as well.
But more than any of these animals, there were birds. A lot of them, providing the soundtrack and the colors. We had cardinals, and blue jays, and hummingbirds, and swallows, and vultures and crows and so many more. We had multiple nests built every year into various trees around the backyard. We were a favored spot for many birds with my Dad's various birdfeeders he would put out. So many animals called this place home. They'll get to continue to enjoy the spoils - to which I hope some find their way to our new home.
I don't know when it was when I realized how amazing this backyard was. As a child, I realized it was big and an area of exploration, imagination and fun. But didn't really appreciate the beauty. In later years, that is all I can think about. Those days just sitting on my chair, rocking back and forth, reading or watchign something, but getting the urge every thirty seconds to just look up and stare at the floral greenery around me. I took so many pictures all from that relative same position. I've pulled out all those photos into one folder that covers a roughly 10-year span. Different phones of different camera quality, but the beauty oozes out as much in 2014 as it did in 2024.
I never get tired of taking in beautiful sights. People never understand why I've been to Cape Town seven times, and can still find enrapturing beauty in staring at Table Mountain from the V&A Waterfront. It's for that reason I've taken roughly 100 pictures from those same spots at the Waterfront over the years. Of course, in the end, I had my own Table Mountain landscape beauty in my own backyard the whole time.
I'm not sad about moving. Or I should say it that I am excited about the future and still 100% think it is the right decision. The garden plays a role in that - with teh yardwork becoming more tiring for my parents over the years. What use is this incredible garden if it takes too much effort and energy to keep it up. My Mom gets a new blank canvas that is better sized for where we are in our lives to mold. But that doesn't mean the loss of that wonderland is any less real. This is one of the two places that won't be replaced - the other being the basement. This will never be replaced, but always a seared memory in my mind I can picture if I close my eyes. It's pretty easy to do that when you've spent your life taking it in enough times to make that memory permanent.
