Admired Garden

I am slowly carving out a small garden in historic Oregon City. Less lawn, more beds filled with dwarf conifers and Japanese Maples – that’s where I’m heading. So far, I have only one maple – a Coral Bark Maple (Acer palmatum 'Sango kaku') that I got last year at the Clackamas County Fair for only $10 in a 3 gallon! It colored up nicely this winter. The twigs are bright coral. Looks good. So good, in fact, that I noticed an elderly woman paused on her late afternoon walk to really look at my garden, with its immature plantings and a curvy lawn path down to raised beds in the back of my yard. I watched her from my office window as she eyed the plantings, did a little double take on the hellebore's pink blossoms, and then slowly moved on. I felt complimented to have someone seemingly appreciate all my efforts of last year; digging out lawn and turning it into planting beds.

Of course, she could have paused to merely pass gas and her pleasant facial expressions were from relief.