Where Yards & Gardens Fight Back

Having a pristine, manicured lawn has never been much of a priority for me, which is lucky because A) I’m lazy, and 2) the yard refuses to cooperate.

And with California having outlawed lawn mowers my only other option is having a goat, who would also eat my car. I know goats. I had a friend out in Potter Valley who once had a goat, briefly.

Anyway, lawns and yards and gardens: Bah. Give me astroturf and a sixpack and you can have all the weed whackers, daffodils, Roundup and aphids you want. In fact I’ll give you some of mine.

In Ukiah I had to be proactive if I wanted to keep my yard at bay, but here in the Carolinas, or at least my few hectares of it, the job is considerably easier because the yard is tenacious. It fights back. It does not easily submit to cultivation, civilization, irrigation or propagation.

Our massive half-acre estate allows nothing to poke its head out of the soil except an old fencepost near the corner. Our yard is a determined and aggressive foe, and never have wife Trophy or I felt we were even making progress, let alone having our way.

Trophy says it’s the soil and I believe her, not that I’ve actually gotten down on my hands and knees to inspect the earthy material, but good stuff doesn’t grow in lousy soil, and our soil isn’t even soil, or dirt.

It’s clay. It’s that thick, unyielding purplish greasy-gray looking gunk that she says would be perfect for Mendocino County potters wanting to spin purplish dinnerware, but not really suitable for dandelions, grass or worms. So our yard is leafy leaves and tree debris scattered over a surface I’m too lazy to rake. What would be the point? To show off our glistening greasy gray clay soil-free non-garden?

Our yard is a dull, desolate tundra-like expanse of thistle and scrubby vegetation that looks the moonscaped grounds at the Grace Hudson Museum.

This is not a compliment.

But at least my yard is its own miserable fault. The geniuses at the Hudson Museum converted a lush, green, people and dog-friendly park into an unintentionally hilarious and astoundingly expensive dull patch of weeds, thorns and crabgrass no different than other vacant lots around town, minus the empty beer cans. And minus the visitors.

On a recent visit back to Ukiah I realized yet again what a shockingly flowerful home we have, thanks 100% to Trophy and 100% to the guys at Down to Earth Landscaping. Bright riots of rich yellow roses and deep gold California poppies remind me how different NorCal and NorCar can be.

But along with the blossoms and blooms our Ukiah yard is a playground for teams of gophers, voles, moles, prairie dogs, woodchucks and meerkats. Kudzu forever has its way. Rodent armies have built caves and tunnels under my yard that I will someday spelunk if I can get an online archaeology license.

Closer to the deck, where I feel safer walking, is my barbecue area, built on sturdy cement and home to my rusted old charcoal-fed Weber grille. It’s where California summer dinners go to die. Our outdoor evening menu is variations on burnt meat, warm beer, cheap wine and Tums. Good thing breakfast is still the most important meal of the day.

North Carolina dinners are mac ‘n cheese along with a side dish.

The yard down south suffers no nonsense from underground critters. A gopher would die under the garden, unable to penetrate the wall of solid clay. Tunnels? They’ll need power tools and dynamite.

If we circle back to the beginning of this column, one of my most forceful personality traits is sloth. Grow grass when there’s Astroturf to pave the yard? I do not miss or yearn for the yard and garden we had in Ukiah with rodents digging tunnels and freeways. Instead we have chiggers digging tunnels beneath our skin, causing itching even when we’ve fled back to the safety of the house. I would happily trade you a thimbleful of chiggers in exchange for your gophers, moles, worms, flowers and lawn. I’ll even take your mower. Chiggers are invisible, which as any sci-fi fan or Marvel Comics student can tell you, is a magical power. My own experience suggests chiggers are able to time-travel, unlock doors and live without air, water or food other than the blood in your veins. I do not know what chiggers want once they’ve punctured my skin (invisibly, of course) except burrow into my corpuscles and marrow and activate the various itch functions in my brain. I do know that chiggers in my yard and county make it hostile territory. I’m not complaining.

Chiggerphobia allows me to own the worst yard on my block. If it weren’t for chiggers prowling around my dandelions I would have by now installed a nice curving path around a bubbling brook leading to a glistening pond and a Community Garden, a butterfly reserve, small shade-grown coffee plantation, a putting green and petting zoo. Bummer, huh? Just pave it all with indoor-outdoor carpet.