Reclaiming the Valley of Death

Ten years we've lived in our house and all that time I've lovingly referred to our backyard as the Valley of Death.

The way my backyard once looked.

(NPS photo)

It wouldn't be fair to say nothing grows in the Valley of Death. There's sandy soil with good drainage. Half the yard is shaded by tall pines sprinkled around the periphery of our property. A few lonely bushes planted by the builder in 2005 had managed to muscle through.

Not the azaleas, mind you. Azaleas and I have never been able to reach a common understanding. My record of killing azaleas is second to none in North Carolina. In fact, if reincarnation is real, then all those poor azaleas I've tortured over the years must have committed some egregious sins in past lives for which they needed to atone.

In the interests of full disclosure, most things I've planted in the Valley of Death have withered and died primarily because I've consistently chosen the wrong kinds of plants. I would find myself roaming the garden section of Lowe's or Walmart, see something colorful and think:

"This looks pretty. I'm going to bring it home and watch it grow." 

Then I'd get it home, plant it, and watch it burn to a cinder in the high heat of summer because I neglected to read the informational card telling me the plant needs 17 hours of shade, several gallons of water, morale-building pep talks, and deep-tissue leaf massages three times a day. After years of this behavior, I finally learned to read the labels and, unknowingly, moved to the opposite end of the spectrum. Only those plants capable of tolerating full sun and requiring little to no water started making the trip home with me. It no longer mattered if they were pretty. The question I asked when wandering the garden section became:

"Can it survive equatorial solar radiation, desert droughts, and the occasional fire ant infestation?"

I wanted plants with a Dungeons and Dragons constitution score of 18, plus three for magical potions (fertilizer). The trouble with that line of thinking is you end up with a yard full of plants and shrubs that look scraggly, twiney and neglected even in the best of health and at full bloom. It's difficult to take pride in showing off a garden full of purposefully planted weeds and sticks that would make Georgia O'Keeffe long for the lush greenery of the New Mexican dessert.

Lately, it seems, I have managed to strike a balance between aesthetics and sturdiness. It all began with a blueberry bush.

I can't recall if I bought the bush or it was given to me as a gift. However it came to me, I planted it in the backyard in the one shady spot where things seems to grow. After all, I like blueberries. I like eating them. I enjoy baking with them. I wanted the bush to have the greatest chance of survival, and planting it where I did paid off. The bush produced approximately one dozen berries that first year, a few dozen the next, quite a few dozen the following year, and presently is poised to yield several hundred berries in the coming weeks.

I fully realize one bush does not the Garden of Eden make, but any sign of success was encouragement. So, this spring, I decided it was time for the Valley of Death to meet its maker.

My next project -- a simple, under-
stated water feature.
(NPS photo)

At present, there are five knockout rose bushes, the blueberry bush, two rosemary plants, several new crepe myrtles, two wildflower patches, two butterfly bushes (which were already there, but which appear to have sensed the enthusiasm), two lovely camellias (thanks Mom and Dad), one spindly grassy thing with long spikes topped by purple blooms, and a rapidly growing grape vine. I hadn't really intended to grow grapes, but Aldi had a rack of mismarked plants ("Grape Bush") near the checkout counter and I simply couldn't resist. Even the oregano I ripped out last year has sprouted anew.

With all this new growth boosting my confidence, perhaps it's time to take the yard to the next level. I've often thought it might be fun to install a water feature. Nothing too intricate, just a simple, understated cascading waterfall with mossy boulders surrounded by a fully matured natural pine forest. Piece of cake...



© 2015 Mark Feggeler

Poison Veggie-Fruit, Anyone?

When I was a kid, my mother kept an impressive garden. It ran along one side of our suburban Long Island home and was accessible from the backyard. Following the final frost of spring, and lasting straight through to the first frost of fall, you could be certain to find a variety of fruits and vegetables sprouting, blooming, and yielding their harvests.

Although she might plant something new every now and then, there were staples on which you could rely. Tomatoes, of course, and string beans grew well, supported by the chain-link fencing surrounding our yard. Raspberries were a summer favorite. Mom made the best raspberry jam that never seemed to set up properly and, consequently, served as an excellent topping for vanilla ice cream. The tiny closet under the basement staircase was a treasure trove of mason jars filled to the rim with freshly boiled and packed preserves.

But there was one item Mom always planted that I never appreciated, mostly because it both confused and frightened me. I speak of rhubarb. The name alone is enough to cause confusion. What the heck is a rhubarb? Why is that unnecessary "h" crammed into the name?

All other naturally-growing and farmed foods make sense to me. An apple looks like an apple. String beans look like string beans. Even pumpkins and squash look like how you would imagine things named pumpkin and squash looking.

But rhubarb looks nothing like what you might think it should because rhubarb is a silly name with no suggestive descriptive qualities whatsoever, and I suppose that's understandable once you get a good look at a rhubarb plant.

Rhubarb has reddish-purple stalks that sprout a foot into the air like diseased celery and have such a tart flavor that they require an entire field of sugar cane just to make them edible. At the top of the plant are mismatched, dark green leaves that make you wonder if some weirdo snuck into your garden during the night and stapled kale to the top of your diseased celery stalks as a prank. And Mom was always quick to warn us against the poisonous qualities of rhubarb leaves.

"Don't eat the leaves!" she would say, as if my brothers and I were secretly scheming to raid the garden for a quick treat of raw rhubarb. You have to wonder who was the first person to figure out you could eat a plant with the color scheme of a poisonous frog and the mouth-puckering uber-tartness of a thousand Granny Smith apples.

That isn't merely an old wive's tale, either. If you eat enough rhubarb leaves -- 11 pounds, to be more precise -- you could end up dead. Not that I expect any of you to suddenly get a hankering for 11 pounds of tart leaves, but be warned that if you cook the leaves in soda you will increase the poison's potency, meaning you might only need seven or eight pounds to make you drop dead. If only because it would be the most disgusting food you ever tasted, don't do it.

To confuse matters even more, the United States government has officially declared rhubarb a fruit, regardless of the fact it has a stalk like celery, leaves like salad, and bears absolutely no fruit. That's kind of like setting aside the fact the platypus is part mammal and part fowl and declaring it a member of the mollusk family just for poops and giggles.

Throughout the years since my childhood, I have learned to enjoy the flavors of many of the suspiciously healthy items at which I once turned up my nose. Cauliflower, carrots, broccoli and many more now cross my plate with no chance of not being eaten, but so far I have managed to keep rhubarb at a safe distance. I plan to keep it that way.



© 2013 Mark Feggeler