Bulletin - Winter 1987 - North American Rock Garden Society

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Life with a Rock Garden
Life with a Rock GardenAunt Do was horrified. "You're a city child. You can't possibly live upthere on that dirt road with no one around but rattlesnakes. How'll you getdown in winter and spring to get the children to school and do the marketing?The school bus won't go up there. Neither can the snow plow half the time.And in spring that road turns into a pig wallow. You'd better live here ona hardtop road and I'll move into the Saltbox. It will suit me much better thanrattling around in this big house and I'd like a change of scenery." My protestswere feeble. It was like being handed the keys of Heaven. And so it wasdecided. We were to live at Millstream.That fall there was a piecemeal shuttling of goods and chattels from onehouse to another. Aunt Do's Jeep did yeoman's service transferring sofas,chairs, bureaus, bookcases, even the refrigerator, the box spring of my fourposterbed, and the grandmother clock.Aunt Do's barnyard, pastures, and enormous vegetable garden acrossthe road from the house were immaculate, but she couldn't be bothered withlandscaping and posies. There was a small lawn around the front of the housethat was kept mowed but on the slope behind the house the soil was so thinthat it couldn't support anything but a sparse cover of weedy grass. To preventtree seedlings from getting a hold, the grass was scythed once or twice ayear by Aunt Do's hired man, George Opley, a gaunt taciturn New Englander.The foundation planting consisted of privet, lilac, and native barberry. Thelilacs were planted on the north side of the house where in deep shade andoverhung by maple trees they struggled to survive but never succeeded inblooming. The privet, on the other hand, throve only too well against thesouth-facing front wall and reached halfway up the front window despite beingcut back periodically by Mr. Opley. Another privet hedge ran along the topof the stone retaining wall that raised the narrow strip of front lawn abovethe road. The barberries Aunt Do had had dug from the pasture and plantedat the corners of the house had succeeded in climbing high enough to lookin the second story windows.in addition to the four big maples that overhung the northwestern endof the house and a crumbling apple tree off the north corner, two huge elms,planted when the kitchen wing had been added in the mid-1850s, flankedthe path leading up to the kitchen door. They were healthy specimens whenwe moved in. Their fluted boles towered above the roof and their archinglimbs were haunted by flying squirrels who sailed down to do gymnasticson the porch clothes line. A few years later the elms succumbed to butchelm disease and had to be taken down, first one and then, 10 years later,the other. We counted the growth rings: 100 in the stump in the first to becut, 110 in the second.Though the remains of the sawmill, which had stood behind the housebeside the brook, had long since been carted away, its square stone founda-5
Page 1 and 2: Bulletin of theAmerican Rock Garden
Page 3 and 4: VOL. 45 WINTER 1987 NO. 1Bulletin o
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Page 19 and 20: Life with a Rock Gardenresist those
Page 21 and 22: Life with a Rock Gardendo something
Page 23 and 24: Rock Garden DaisiesPanayoti Kelaidi
Page 25 and 26: Transplantation and Propagationof Z
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THE VAIL ALPINE GARDENA new garden
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CAMELLIA FOREST NURSERYCamellias
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Bulletin - Winter 1987 - North American Rock Garden Society

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