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Maria Mascaro
Landing, New Jersey
This is the story of my garden.
I am a writer, an artist, a teacher and the single mother
of one "garden impaired" young man. Some years ago,
I was elated to purchase a lovely little lake home with
a spacious open floor plan in a quiet community - perfect!
Well, ALMOST perfect. The "backyard" was a steep, rocky,
barren hill that approached a 45 degree angle. It had
several large trees and a tangle of underbrush beneath
them. No one had ever even THOUGHT of putting a garden
there. And neither did I at first. I was so busy with
so many other "new homeowner" projects that attempting
such a prodigious task never occurred to me. I would
just look out my kitchen window at the rocky "jungle"
and sigh: "I love this home; too bad I'll never have
a garden".
I come from a family of Italian gardeners. Some of my
most vivid memories are walks with my grandmother in
her backyard learning the names of the flowers that
grew there as she spoke of them in her accented English
("Theesa eesa foura clock. They calla them fouraclock
becausa they opena when the sun starta go don."), listening
to her stories about them ("Theesa one, thees eesa the
mother rose. Alla the reda rose eena the yard comea
froma theesa one bush."). My father literally died in
his garden; he suffered a heart attack cutting down
sumac saplings in the 103 degree heat wave of August,
2001. I knew that robust 81year old man would not have
wanted to die in some sick bed but would rather have
passed on this way, working...in his garden. My father
had fig trees; my grandmother had over a hundred rose
bushes. I always dreamt I would too.
A year passed in my new home and many tasks were accomplished.
One spring day, I looked out that kitchen window, saw
those rocks and thought..."Hmmmm...I have so many rocks,
why can't I build a rock garden!?" A little research
on the special considerations of true rock or alpine
gardening answered THAT question but now my mind was
thinking a little more "outside the box". I didn't have
a traditional area for a garden or money for a landscaper
but...maybe...
A neighbor had a chain saw and helped me cut down the
underbrush and several small trees to open the area
(photo of area after cutting attached...alas no "jungle
pictures" are extant). My neighbor had a bad knee and
so I carried all the logs, branches, brush, etc. to
the front of my home for the chippers...alone...almost
defiant in the loneliness of the heavy task. The pile
I created was approximately seven and half feet tall.
The town chipper crew came to take the wood, took one
look, and said: "We're going for a beer first!" It took
them THREE AND A HALF HOURS to chip all the brush. I
felt proud of short little feisty self.
Then I began to dig. Rocks. Dig...CHINK! Dig...CHINK!
Dig...CHINK! There was little ELSE but rocks. I broke
picks. I broke shovels. But I dug them out. Only to
find...more rocks....and more rocks. There was very
little dirt at all on the hill and what was there was
red and dry. Sigh. Fancying myself with some genetic
trait passed on from Roman builders, I stacked all the
rocks into borders and edges for my beds and I carried
soil up that steep hill to fill the holes they'd left
behind in the ground. A true labor of love. I didn't
know anything about constructing a raised bed so half
the soil I carried up that hill the first year washed
back down that winter. But time passed...and I kept
digging and some soil started staying and some plants
started growing (muscles too!). And now...please, take
a look at my garden! It has been growing and changing
since 1999...it changes with the seasons, it changes
with my tastes, branches fall, (a tree fell while I
was in a hammock!), but it always keeps me active clambering
up that hill!
More
information: Click here
to see more of Maria's garden
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