Midway through uprooting Bermuda grass in the yard, I’m inspired to write a poem.
Each clutch of roots from the earth a new metaphor:
This gnarled bunch, a tuft of mischievous boy’s hair;
That mother of all taproots, a handful of mangled molars,
A reverse reminder of a scene from a Saturday television matinee
of Jason and the Argonauts where a squad of skeletons
are born from a sack of teeth sown across the sand…
A digression, for sure, for any proper poem
but what can I say, my mind’s meandering as I work.
Thinking now of the gloves my father bought me as a bribe
to get me to work in the yard, and how that wasn’t enough
to compensate against my aversion to dirt.
How is it that, at age 45, the simple reward of silence
and incremental progress with plants stirs up so much satisfaction?
I think of Theodore Roethke and how he, up to his elbows in mulch,
could revel in sound and psyche and soil.
I think of the tired conceit of Frost’s mending fences and think,
how true, the saga of our yard has come full circle,
how tending to earth’s silent overgrowth makes me attentive to the echoes within.

Our New Xeriscaped Lawn, originally uploaded by johntynan.

After weeks of discussion, some creative financing and simple luck, our lawn is now complete. Rene says she’s really glad to have kept out of the discussion and that, in the end, it turned out just right. I couldn’t agree more (that it turned out well. Rene’s input was invaluable).  To read Rene’s take on our landscaping issues, visit her blog at therollerskatejams.blogspot.com.

A great deal of credit goes to Tom Tash for listening to what we said we wanted, then being patient with us when we changed our minds. In the end, I think he helped us to make all the right choices:

clockwise from left to right: Lantana. Langman’s Sage. Hybrid Palo Verde. Arizona Yellow Bells (out of frame: Bird of Paradise. Acacia).

Fiesta Lantana, originally uploaded by johntynan.

We love lantana! Before Rene and I knew we were even dating, we went to see Team America at the cinema. We loved the movie, but came away “pummeled by parody.” We left the mall and walked through the parking lot to get some air. As we were doing this, Rene plucked a lantana bloom and threw it in the air. All the little colored trumpets fell around us like rain. I knew then I was smitten… I still am.

Needless to say, the presence of lantana in our yard is essential.

Lantana and Gnome, originally uploaded by johntynan.

We decided to place more garden gnomes around the yard.

In a gesture of appreciation, we even named one of the garden gnomes after Tom, our landscaper.

This gnome leans back against a boulder to appreciate his new home and a view of the lantana in bloom.

The Granite Arrives, originally uploaded by johntynan.

I’m a little late about blogging about this, but the landscapers were by the house all last week.

They sliced off about four or five inches of topsoil and grass and hauled it away. After laying some tubing down for the new drip irrigation system, they brought a mountain of crushed gravel by and started to spread it around.

We had to cut back on costs so the flower garden, vine and trellis by the front door will have to wait. We also had to wait on the flagstone walkway.

Instead of putting in brittle bush, we opted on desert marigolds which Rene likes. The desert grass at the nursery wasn’t looking so good so we decided not put them in just yet.

Here in Arizona we’re going through the 10th or so year of a drought. I mean, no water. Nothing. My next door neighbors are in denial about this. They water their lawn and their flower bed constantly. Their front yard is perfectly manicured.

And that hasn’t bothered me too much. I talk to them. I wave hello when I’m getting the morning paper. But, they seem to have taken an exception to the way I’ve cared for our lawn. I, on the other hand, am allergic to bermuda grass, and simply refuse, on principle, to maintain the kind of yard that would easily grow elsewhere in the world — but that simply doesn’t belong in the desert. I’ve vowed that no water shall fall onto our property that doesn’t fall naturally from the sky.

But this approach to landscaping seems to have soured any neighborly feelings the couple next door have ever held towards us. For instance, the other day, when the husband was shaving down all errant blades of grass along the border between our yards, I tried to say hello and he simply turned his back and walked away. Less than a week later, we received a notice from the city of Tempe saying our lawn was “slumlike” and that we had 30 days to improve its condition or face a $75 charge.

This had us quite upset, as you can see in this video taken by our friend Joe during a visit from Vermont:

Well, I’ll admit it. We gave up. We had looked for some landscapers but their quotes were either way too high — or, in the case of Pedro and his band of undocumented workers, their practices were suspect. So, we simply kept the idea in mind, thinking that the right opportunity would present itself. Well, it never presented itself. The people we called either didn’t call back, or we were too busy to get any additional quotes. However, armed with this new urgency from the city, we were looking again.

We posted to Craig’s List, we pulled out the old quotes and were almost ready to bite the bullet and pay 12 grand to a guy named Auggie to get the work done. However, last week, while taking Rigatoni on her morning walk, I decided to approach the driver of truck that was parked outside a neighbor’s house and had the business name Tom’s Landscaping on the side of the door. I could not have had better luck.

It turns out Tom was a licensed master gardener from Phoenix’s Desert Botanical Garden. And I’m totally in tune with his approach. It’s like we see eye to eye on the whole desert plant thing. So, over the the next month we’ll be working to transform our front yard. We’ll be selecting desert plants… palo verde, lantana, accacia. And I’ll be learning, first hand, what goes into creating a desert lawn.

Here’s a sketch that I made today outlining our initial plan for the front yard:

We’re planning to put in lots of lantana, two hedges: one Arizona Yellow Bell, the other Langman’s Sage. We’ll be putting in a Palo Verde and an Accacia so people can smell the citrus-like blooms from the entrance to our house. We’re also planning to put in lighting and a wide fieldstone pathway to welcome guests.