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| Eclipse of the Sun, Auburn NY, April 8, 2024 |
NANO-GARDENING in a MACRO-REGULATION ENVIRONMENT
August 1, 2008
When the Cusins were investigating senior retirement
communities, Sue always asked about possibilities for a garden plot. At Serene Retirement
Community, she was assured by Marketing that individual small gardens were very
likely. They didn't promise, of course, since the facility was still under
construction, but Keith emphasized the “very”. After all, the SRC sister-community
in Oregon had such garden plots. “Great”, Sue thought, for she had gardening in
her bones. She had grown up with a father who even cross-pollinated iris and
divided and labeled the resulting rhizomes, while her mother kept arrangements
of cut flowers constantly throughout the house. Before they moved to SRC, the Cusins
had a large, magnificent garden. She, Sue, carried a long list of “must plant”
annuals and perennials around in her head. Sun and water and dirt! She needed
them as most people need nutrients.
Well after they had done the wrenching downsizing from their
spacious home to their apartment at SRC, leaving her Japanese maples and New
Zealand tree ferns, her dahlias, her tulips, her gladiolas, her rhododendrons,
her azaleas, her asters and zinnias, her petunias and marigolds - well it
turned out there would be no individual garden plots. All available land was
needed for bocci ball courts or green lawns or picnic tables.
Sue, therefore, focused on the six by ten foot cement porch
of their ground floor apartment, cramming the space with variously sized
planter containers. This would have to be her gardening niche a nano-garden.
She discovered several things in the first few months of
such gardening. First, the porch of the 2nd floor apartment completely shaded her
planting space. Never before had she worked in dense shade; some of her garden
had been in light shadow, the sunlight filtered by tree branches but not with
complete absence of direct sunlight. Now she adjusted and grew cyclamen, impatiens,
begonias and leggy geraniums.
Second, there was no water faucet available and her requests
for one were turned down, so she had to carry all water for every plant across
their living room. Do the math! With ten pounds per watering can times 365 days
per year (no rain could reach our pots through the porch above) times “n”, an
integer since on warmer days two, three, or even more trips were required to
service all plants, divided by 2000 pounds per ton--that was a bottom line
showing her having to schlep somewhere from 1.8 tons to over 5.4 tons of water
every year
Sue had been on the Landscape Committee when the Cusins first
moved in. At this time there was not any planting around their building. She
called their view either the “Gobi Desert” or the “Great Salt Lake” depending on the season. She had asked the
then-director, Jim, on a landscape planning tour of the site, if she could
plant a few things under their window. In no uncertain terms he said that it
was not permitted as “there’s a regulation that all external features must be the
same and provided by SRC”. In violation
of this rule, Scott Cusins, in the dead of night, had dug in three dozen King
Arthur daffodils the first year no one objected when their bright yellow head
started bobbing in the spring breezes so he did it again the next year even
after official landscape architect foundation plantings appeared he labored
subversively clandestinely but with his results applauded by sue and lots of
other residents.
Encouraged by the lack of regulation enforcement, Sue began
to move some potted plants into the forbidden sunlight areas off of their porch.
One fall, she scattered California Poppy seeds between the approved
institutionally planted oleander and flax plants. The landscaping service
unfortunately tossed pre-emergent weed killer over the same territory. That
spring two lonely poppy plants, nestled beneath protective oleander branches,
manage to flaunt their orange velvet flowers. Their existence was a small but
distinct victory over rigid rules.
The opening of their porch might provide a third dimension
for vegetation, Sue thought. Scott
rigged up a trellis arrangement and she tried growing sweet peas in pots. They
climbed but bloomed sparsely --only semi successful. Then she bought two bare root tree roses, which, she reasoned,
would bloom above the porch railing.
All went well for a while. But then the lush new growth on
the port side of the roses began to wither in the shade from powdery mildew. A
systemic soil additive helped, but eventually all the house-side branches died,
even as those reaching into the sunshine prospered and produced fragrant blooms
The Cusins saw bleak dead wood from their window and could only see rose
blossoms if they drove by on the street. Sue reluctantly through out the two
roses. Since all trash (like the water) had to be carried through their living
room, Sue cut and bagged the thorny branches, whether dead or alive, and
managed to complete the task with only four scratches worth band aids.
Now she refilled the pots with good soil (carefully carried
through the living room) and tried clematis vines. They like cool roots and
sunlight leaves. This seems to be working and there are now both scarlet and
pale blue star-shaped flowers gracing the trellis.
At the moment, the Cusins are enjoying their foliage-filled
porch and also the illicit pots of blooms on the common area. If Sue is told to
remove her containers, she plans to move them temporarily inside to a seldom
used bathtub where they can be watered. She believes she can wait out any
enforcer of regulations since directors seemed to change with the seasons.
