Plotting in my backyard.

 

For me, 2018 was year of tremendous upheaval, stress and heartbreak but it had some positives, too. Early in 2017, my hubby was diagnosed with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. It soon became clear that we needed to get away from the high-altitude, smoggy, polluted air of Johannesburg and down to somewhere near the sea, where the oxygen content would be higher.

Property prices (even for rentals) are ridiculously high at the coast. After much searching, we finally found a little cottage in the Eastern Cape - two hours drive from the coast and not quite at sea-level but infinitely better than Jo'burg. I'm not even going to mention the packing. Downsizing from a large four bedroom house (with the accumulation of more than 20 years of 'stuff')  to a tiny 2 bedroom cottage took planning of epic proportions - particularly since we only a had a couple photographs of the cottage to work from. And that, my friends, was the problem. The cottage was virtually 'sight unseen.'

I did a Google earth search. Of course I did. The cottage appeared to have a fair sized garden behind it. I can't live without a garden and I knew I'd miss the big garden we had, but smaller was okay.. Wow. Were we in for a shock. Clearly I had been looking at the wrong property. What we discovered when we arrived, was the ugliest little backyard I have ever seen.

 I remember standing there and just staring at it. This, I thought, is what depression looks like. Our two cats, who had howled non-stop (despite tranquilizers) for all the 9 1/2 hour drive down here, were struck dumb. It isn't a good idea to project human thoughts onto animals but it was hard not to sense their dismay. We'd brought them from a big, tree-filled, garden with lush lawns and lots of playing space, to this!

Both cats would spend hours just sitting on the bricks and staring up the fence. It was as if we'd exchanged their carriers for a slightly bigger cage. The only greenery was the ficus I'd brought with us and a few weeds straggling through the cement.

And, having already signed a year's lease on the place, it wasn't as if we could just up stakes and move somewhere else. A plan B became a necessity.

So, after a couple of months of staring at it, and much research into small gardens, I had to come up with another plot. No pun... okay... pun intended. I thought about container gardening. It had a lot of merit but wouldn't necessarily hide the ugliness of that fence. So, I figured, if it can't go out, it must go up. Vertical gardening.


The first thing I did was cover that fence with black shade cloth. It hid the fence, even though it did nothing the quieten the noise from the nursery school playground immediately behind the fence. Did I mention the nursery school? No? The realtor didn't either. How is putting a writer slap-bang next to a nursery school playground a good fit? But let's not even go there.

The next step was to have trellises made. We thought about making them ourselves but there was no space to work in. After searching most of the Eastern Cape for someone who makes these things, we finally found a carpenter a block away. He was happy to make them and did a pretty good job.

The trellises were customized to fit into the irregular spaces between the upright fence poles, but they weren't painted. That was my job. I got a lot of teasing about this from my friends on AW and word 'trellis' developed a lot of other meanings. Writers! Would you expect anything else?

My hubby helped put the first trellis up but it was obvious that, despite appearances, his health was failing. A few weeks later, he passed away. Rex was the love of my life. I can only describe those first few weeks after his passing as the darkest, most agonized time of my life. I spent most of it curled into a ball of misery. Grieving is one thing but self-pity is another. I had to get up and do something vigorous or... I don't know... fall into the abyss? So, I got stuck into the garden.

  I had to get help in putting up the other two trellises. It wasn't that they were too heavy but holding one in place, while operating a power drill and a cordless screwdriver, was just too much. Damn. I hate being a small woman sometimes.

Fortunately, this is a friendly town. When Rex passed, I had lots of offers of help from many, many people. Much as I like to be a do-it-alone kind of girl, sometimes you just have to ask.

Anyway, once the trellises were painted and secured to the posts, I started lifting the bricks and mapping out the beds. Having manhole covers for the drain system in the middle of the yard didn't do much for the aesthetics of the design. I had to work around them. Nothing I could do about that. I put the little tree in the corner first because, once the beds were built, it would be hard to get in there. The supporting beam for the fence can't be moved.

Lifting the bricks was easy and, fortunately, there was no concrete or second layer underneath. I could get them out with little effort. Bricklaying and plastering, however, was something else again. I've never done that before. Fortunately there are YouTube videos that will teach you about practically everything DIY.

Okay, the videos will teach. It doesn't mean that I necessarily learned much but I did get the general idea. And I'm not blaming anything on my tools. Really, I'm not. But having only a spare cat litter tray for mixing cement does have its limitations. So does the fact that not one single brick was ever the same size as another. But hey. Now I have stone-masonry experience too!  And Mai-Ling kept a watchful eye on the proceedings, using most of the freshly cleared soil to express her opinion of my efforts. Cats. You gotta love 'em.

 I could only work in the evenings from 5 - 7pm as there was still the freelance job to do (a girl's got to earn a living) and the heat during the day, in the confined space, is a bit too much. So it took four months to complete, more or less. I haven't put plants into the bed at the end yet. It's south-facing and not getting much sun now. It will have to wait for spring.

So here is my little postage stamp of a garden. There are a lot tears mixed into that cement but it was the best thing I could have done for myself. It got me through those really dark days. Rex could never understand why I wanted raised flower beds and I struggled to explain how I thought they would create the illusion of space. I think they do. Hopefully, he can see what I meant.

Oh, and my cats are happy. They roll on the grass, run along the little wall and play hide-and-seek in the corners around the manhole covers. Or, maybe I'm just projecting. Even the ficus tree has its own little bed on the other side, under some shade cloth and has doubled in size. At least I can sit out here, watch my plants grow and plot what I'm going to do with the rest of my life. So far, so good.