The Early Years — Part 6

After returning from our two-week vacation in February 1982, we started planning our landscaping project for the house. Springtime in the Detroit area always meant going to Eastern Market in downtown the Sunday after Mother's Day. Growers from around the metro area would bring their flats of flowers and set up their booths so that everyone could browse and make their decisions on what was going to be planted for the summer. We always concentrated on annuals, those wonderful flowers that would bloom their hearts out before the first frost of the fall would kill them. But what a show they put on.

Dennis tackled the strip that ran from the front sidewalk to the garage, a strip of about 75 feet in length and about 8 feet wide. The biggest problem with this area was that it would get overrun with morning glories, which would overtake anything growing there. Dennis dug the entire area up and by hand, went through each shovelful of dirt looking for morning glory roots. Even the smallest root would take hold and grow, so the chore was as daunting as you could get. But what a spectacular job he did. He turned the entire area into a Japanese-style garden, with a river of white stones running through it. The "river" border was made of tree branches from a large cherry tree that had died in the front yard. He used the larger trunk pieces to create an area where we planted rhododendrons by the garage, with a "waterfall" of white rock starting the river.

While he was working along the driveway, I tackled the yard on the other side of the house. A chain link fence separated our yard from the neighbor's and I dug out a sculptured strip from the front by the sidewalk all the way back to the fence at the back of the property. I should mention that our lot was approximately 75 feet wide and about 100 feet in depth—a large yard that took about an hour and a half to mow. Instead of digging just a straight line, I sculpted the area with long "S" curves throughout the entire area. Once done, I planted the front with 100 gladiolus, created "rose hill" which contained about a dozen rose bushes, then used other perennials like phlox and annuals to fill up the entire area with flowers. I used mini-marigolds as the border flowers. By mid-summer, the yard was bursting with color. We had two raised beds along the sides of the front porch; in front of each bed, I dug out triangles from the sidewalk to the end of each bed and filled them with more annuals: marigolds, petunias, zinnias, and geraniums.

While attending the Ann Arbor Arts Fair in August, I asked Dennis if he'd like to move to San Francisco. With no hesitation, he agreed that would be a great idea. We contacted a real estate agent and started the proceedings. The house was looking great, what with all the new landscaping, so it seemed like the perfect time to put it up for sale. After all, it was one of the reasons why I bought the house: to later sell it and finance a move to San Francisco. The ironic part was that when we finally got a viable offer, it was in November and all the flowers were either dead (the annuals) or going into their dormant state (the perennials). Funny how things turn out sometimes.