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179 People Gary i have never made a garden with anyone but gary. I tried once, but it was an utter failure, marred by a lot of problems. When I think back on it, the overwhelming reason for its failure was that so many people were involved: some were incompetent; some uninterested or, worse, looked on the entire effort as a problem akin to pesky rodents or drenching hailstorms; a few were eager but couldn’t manage the time to see it through to the end. Ultimately, despite months of effort, it failed to become more than a good idea gone bad; I was exhausted by the effort to overcome the obstacles and finally abandoned it. It drifted to that lonely place in the back of my mind that holds all the good things that might have been. However, a lot of good ideas arose during the tedious business of not building that doomed garden and a few never left me: the possibility of a walkway lined with masses of rosette succulents like red hesperaloe, where the wands of coral flowers would drape over your head like an honor guard; or the breathtaking beauty that tidy plants like twin-flowered agave (Agave geminiflora), used in great sweeps, could achieve; or how soothing a welldone color-themed garden can be. Once I got over the disappointment, I realized that I had learned a lot even in failure. It became crystal clear that what makes a garden zing is the fruition of a single, personal dream; it might take in the ideas of others, but rejects their prejudices, personal dislikes, and unruly ideas. A garden, 180 • A Place All Our Own in short, feels most successful when it is the expression of the ideas, attitudes , and interests of whoever built it. That may be why so many public gardens are wonderful collections of plants but too often lack soul and verve, and why so many beautiful professionally designed private gardens are predictable and dull, chock full as they often are with overused popular concepts. I am convinced that all of us are instinctively drawn to any garden—whether we realize it or not—that has at its root someone’s vision, where the backbone is personal and a gardener’s interests, enthusiasm, and attention is evident. The building of this garden has proven considerably more successful than that other communal gardening effort. This one is an intertwined activity, threading through both our lives as a long, slow trail, leading us from a vaguely articulated garden idea to the snug harbor of a comfortable patio or the pleasures of a maturing planting. The approach of each of us has shifted and changed over the years, as ideas run through our heads, both individually and separately, for years on end. Until one day it is time, and an idea bursts out like a moth from its cocoon ready to take on either the skepticism or the interest of the other partner. Two people who are building a garden have both separate and collective ideas of what comes next, how a bed should be shaped, to what use a particular part of the garden is best suited, and, most difficult of all, how an area needs to be revamped and rethought; that’s what makes conjugal gardening such a fascinating endeavor, as well as one so ripe for contention . Our garden building has and probably always will be full of conflicts, compromises, changes of direction, and shifts in emphasis, making it a wild ride rather than a smooth sail. That is why it is so much fun, so worth doing, and so completely satisfying in the end. We often tell people that the only thing we argue about is plants—and that is true for the most part. There isn’t enough money to argue over, the dogs and cats aren’t enough trouble to cause conflict, and who could bring themselves to argue about cars or appliances or furniture? That only leaves the garden. These arguments, which might seem fierce to an outsider, are the anvil on which the most successful parts of the garden have been forged. In the end, it is always our garden, rather than his part and my part—an alternate scheme I have seen occasionally, and which I find unbearably sad. Ironically, it is in the dreary monotony of watering that we have our most fundamental and intractable differences. In this dry, dry place, water is not just important...

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