The rocks are gone. They have been rooted up and put in a form for the new back porch. Within a couple of days, they will be entombed in concrete as the cement is poured.
All that is visible from my second story bedroom window is a flat round patch of bare earth, sprinkled with grass seed where this morning a three foot high hill of rocks and plants once existed. That is all that remains of the backyard rock garden. The rock garden was a magical place – a place of mountains and adventure. Each rock was a stepping stone into fantasy. In the spring, the tulips, daffodils, and hyacinths poked their way through the cold earth. The was especially true on the south facing slope where the sun-warmed boulders gave the earth a little extra boost, sometimes while the snow encrusted gullies on the north remained cold and forbidding.
The rock garden changed character on its own since it was crammed with perennials that required little or no maintenance – a little water and weeding was all that the garden needed to produce on its own. As we got taller, we could hop from rock to rock – making sure not to fall, and definitely not touch the ground in between the rocks – at least until we got caught. Romping among the flowers was supposedly not in their best interest, but we could never tell any difference.
The change is supposed to make the yard bigger, easier to mow, and give us room to play. I suppose we are getting too big to lie in the shadow of the little hill during hide-and-seek. However, I am not sure that I like the change. I guess we will have to make do with the rock garden on the east side of the house – another collection of boulders and perennials – albeit, not a hill.
However, the side garden has some neat rocks. My favorite is the driver’s seat rock. We can snuggle up with our backs to its flat, slate gray side and pretend we are driving. Sometimes, we are driving a car, but other times we think big and drive a bus with all the neighborhood kids perched on rocks behind us. The feature of this garden is a vast carpet of oriental poppies that bloom in May. Earlier in the spring, the alyssum and grape hyacinths along with blood red tulips made their appearance.
The large cedar that shaded the garden is long gone – a victim of its own success since its extensive root system was a constant invader of the sewer system leading to clogs and all sorts or unpleasantness within the house. Several large lilac bushes bloom along the boundary of the yard of the house next door.
We hope that Dad does not need more stones for porches since we now only have one rock garden for play – and this one is not even a hill.
