history-May 2007

As closing approached, we returned again for a second look. It didn't seem as overgrown then as it had in the listing. Compact dirt and gravel were more evident though. And little did I know that a crazy labyrinth of woody roots were lying below the surface, waiting for the beginning of sumac season.

history-April 2007

The spring before we moved in. The back yard leading up to the garage was being used as a parking lot. Problem #1: compact soil. (Oh, and house is falling apart.)

history

With our first house, I inherited an overgrown swath of dirt from gardeners past. It was small, I guess--a little over 1/10 of an acre--but for someone coming to it from a 4th floor Brooklyn walk-up it was vast and full of promise. In back, among the towering sumac, bindweed and norway maple seedlings, old stands of knotty irises, spotty daylilies and rampant widow's tears were happily running wild. In the front, two beautiful azalea bushes suffered quietly from rust and crowding beneath a canopy of upstarts. And a pair of fuchsia climbing roses languished under a broken downspout, almost completely defoliated by blackspot. There were forsythia growing in locations I didn't understand, and tiny plastic toy soldiers abandoned in weedy patches waiting to be discovered. An ancient wisteria, romantic and stately and crammed into a corner behind the shed, served as a silent marker of this garden's untold history. (photos from house listing)