Terracing on Wazoo

Merry in Texas (two years old) in a previous garden (1 year old)

Our one year stay in the wilds of Texas (gardening-wise) was full of battles with unbelievable spiders, fireants, and those remarkably industrious, plague-like leaf-cutter ants. A group of leaf-cutters stripped my father-in-law's rose bush in one evening. You could watch them laboring in a straight line over the sidewalk, burdened with towering loads of redbud leaves. If they chose a favorite of yours, say your Mexican Heather, all was lost. Boiling water, soap, you name it--the tunnels of the leaf-cutters were deep and secret, and even if you thought you had them beat they reappeared like a ghostly army.

Martin and I gave gardening a good effort in Texas. You could get a tin can to grow in the rich soil, but then some critter would eat it up, no fooling, every time. Martin's vegetable garden was well-researched and planned but utterly pathetic in the end. Our compost pile looked busy enough; it swarmed with life and I squinted my eyes in defense every time I dumped in a new round of scraps. Indeed it was so frightening in there that we never used the well-rotted mess except to spread it hap-hazardly on a bed of cilantro.

After we cleared the mountains of leaves from our patio, I dug beds and lined them with bricks. The nurseries were tempting with every sort of tropical plant I grew up with in Bangladesh, and I bought bunches of plants regardless of the fact that they were suited for full sun and our patio was shadowed in cool shade from the giant spreading pecan trees.

I even planted sunflowers, which were duly destroyed by a tropical-force storm.

And before I left, just a year later, I dug up all my best plants (one scorching summer day--not recommended replanting time!) and bedded them in at my in-laws, where the jasmine, heather, esperanza, and lantana took off gloriously, at last at home in full sunshine. It turns out that even impatiens is a perennial in Texas (who would have thought it?), in the sunny humidity.

Fast-forward some years and you'll find us in the cooler, drier hills of Pennsylvania, at Wazoo Farm. All in all, I think I've found the perfect planting zone. Why? It's cold enough in the winter to rule out mighty armies of bugs, snakes, and creatures, yet we're still warm enough to make rhododendron, azaleas, and dogwoods feel right at home.

And for the first time in my life, I might just stay put long enough to see my garden mature with the passage of time. This is a happy development, especially as it makes our toil feel worthwhile.

Today found me beginning terracing on one part of our plummeting hill. If you've ever seen the stunning terraces in Ecuador, say, the effort seems worthwhile. At least in theory. If terracing sounds like fun to you, you are deluded. I can't remember the last time I've been so sore at the end of a day, though it may have been the time I last gave birth to a baby.

I've been putting off the hills since we moved into our house last summer. One hill is covered with nettles and some promising landscape rose stubs I threw in last fall. The other hill is covered in long grass and various weeds, and is waiting anxiously to receive the box of berries the UPS fellow dropped off this morning. Oh, no, I thought. They're here, nestled in that Stark Brothers box: 48 strawberries, raspberries, blackberries. And I'm not ready. Again, the bad hostess.

--What's in that box, Mommy?
--MORE WORK.

But look, I'm not complaining really. I just wish an army of fit people armed with shovels and hoes would knock on the door: We've come to take care of the hill, ma'am.

Yes, please. Instead I get visited by the Jehovah's Witnesses, and they only leave tracts. I saw the Mormon missionaries walking by again today, and hoping they were not trampling our insignificant Canadian Hemlocks, I pictured myself handing them shovels, perhaps, or inviting them on the precarious wheelbarrow walk up to the garden. They looked a great deal cleaner than I have in a while, and I didn't think they'd be up for the trek with a stinky, filthy indeterminate Christian.

Tomorrow, more terracing. I invite you to show up with your shovels.