LETTERS FROM HOME: PLANNING PARADISE AMONG THE BROKEN BOTTLES

Oct. 5, 2000

Dear Patty,

DC plants lovely flowers in our yard but the lawn is a bit scraggly. It resembles the top of Sean Connery's head.

DC has decided we need a landscaper to develop her master plan for the yard. That plan is still a secret to me and, I suspect, still taking shape in her brain.

My vision is an oasis with a putting green in the middle. Something tells me a fountain is more prominent in hers.

DC has a few "musts": a sunning area for the backyard snakes she thinks of as pets, a wild space for wild things, a promenade for Hank and Lucy, and a zen den for me.

Our landscape consultant is Joe, who does syndicated TV spots about gardening and landscaping. DC meets him at the front door with two textbooks on garden design. She walks him over to the side of the house and tells him she wants a big gate there opening onto paradise. Think of the beginning of "King Kong."

Joe doesn't flinch. DC likes that. He's a dreamer, too.

While we're dreaming, car tires squeal on the street and we pick up beer cans launched over the fence from the park next door. DC asks if a noise barrier can be erected in a back yard.

As Joe assesses our yard and suggests changes, it becomes clear that a landscaper is really an optical illusionist. Things are planted in a way that make your house and your yard look bigger than they are. It's all about texture and very little about blossoms.

First, Joe wants us to cut down the tall maple tree by the front fence. Soft maples are not good neighbors, he says, because they keep other living things nearby from thriving. The tree also is blocking sunlight from our back yard and it's brittle enough to be a danger in a wind storm. Strike three.

Still, I balk. Who wants to cut down trees?

Landscaping, the landscaper says, sometimes demands you be ruthless.

We also must prune the holly tree in the front yard because it hides the front of the house from the street and is another blocker of the sun. Joe doesn't appreciate that we live on South Lorimier Street. Sometimes hiding is the way to go.

Broken liquor bottles on the sidewalk present special challenges for a landscaper.

As Joe is leaving, DC worries whether we can be finished with the landscaping before winter. Joe and I look at each other dumbfounded. I was hoping for a 10-year project.

We have a two-week window of opportunity for re-seeding with bluegrass before it's too cold. Already DC has put in boxwoods along one side of the front yard. I'm usually at the golf course late on Sunday afternoon, but there I was helping dig up the front yard.

Marriage and master plans demand sacrifices.

Love, Sam