A Dryland Look
It's unbelievably hard to look at the beautiful gardens I built here and know I won't see them again. It all looks so good now, with maturing trees, some shade finally, and a pleasing composition.
And it's so New England -- green and leafy and surrounded by woods. In just a few days time we will be in our new home in New Mexico, far from the eastern woodland world I grew up in and lived in all my life.
We won't have any lawn out there. This view of the side of our garage shows the strip of untended space next to the community walking path. While our home has enclosed courtyards where I will garden, and shady trees near the house, the surrounding open area is dry, mostly untreed and scrubby looking.
Despite growing up in an eastern woodland, I love this look. I like the clean, unfussy, wide open, dryland look, where the sky is the feature that draws you, not the state of the landscaping around you.
I love the fact that we won't have to mow, fertilize, irrigate, trim, rake, or pest-treat a grass lawn. In summer our lawn here is a lot of work and expense, and in winter it is just flat brown, or covered in snow. Lawns, or the grass strips around commercial areas, look so awful when they are not well tended.
In New Mexico there is none of that. The dry sandy earth, studded with chamisa shrubs and piñon pines (not trees, they are more like evergreen shrubs), is not something that has to be worked and fussed over. It's just there, natural, unchanging and a constant neutral background.
Many people have expressed puzzlement at how I could live in such a stark, unpretty place after having my lush, complex, green gardens here in the east for so long. But I am oddly attracted to the dry, open look. Of course I'll want a garden in my little courtyard, and I like that Santa Fe is treed and shady in town.
But the drylands surrounding everything appeals to me. It looks so natural. Not pretty, not lush, but completely natural and the way it is supposed to look.
And it's so New England -- green and leafy and surrounded by woods. In just a few days time we will be in our new home in New Mexico, far from the eastern woodland world I grew up in and lived in all my life.
We won't have any lawn out there. This view of the side of our garage shows the strip of untended space next to the community walking path. While our home has enclosed courtyards where I will garden, and shady trees near the house, the surrounding open area is dry, mostly untreed and scrubby looking.
Despite growing up in an eastern woodland, I love this look. I like the clean, unfussy, wide open, dryland look, where the sky is the feature that draws you, not the state of the landscaping around you.
I love the fact that we won't have to mow, fertilize, irrigate, trim, rake, or pest-treat a grass lawn. In summer our lawn here is a lot of work and expense, and in winter it is just flat brown, or covered in snow. Lawns, or the grass strips around commercial areas, look so awful when they are not well tended.
In New Mexico there is none of that. The dry sandy earth, studded with chamisa shrubs and piñon pines (not trees, they are more like evergreen shrubs), is not something that has to be worked and fussed over. It's just there, natural, unchanging and a constant neutral background.
Many people have expressed puzzlement at how I could live in such a stark, unpretty place after having my lush, complex, green gardens here in the east for so long. But I am oddly attracted to the dry, open look. Of course I'll want a garden in my little courtyard, and I like that Santa Fe is treed and shady in town.
But the drylands surrounding everything appeals to me. It looks so natural. Not pretty, not lush, but completely natural and the way it is supposed to look.
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