It was summer when my family packed up and moved .6 mile closer to the city, closer to shopping and schools. More importantly to my parents, they moved to a house that would better accommodate their family of 6 than the Craftsman cottage they had called home for 15 years.

I barely remember that first house, I was married from the second. Always I remember the yard, the plants, the neighbor’s plants and trees. I did a street view search recently and had to look away and back to my memories. Not that things look rundown but they are so very different. Gardens and walls and plants have changed so much. Of course, that is what people do. We make our land our own. How well I seem to remember my parents removing the blooming shrubs that my sister and I played under for plants more to their liking.

There are few photos of that yard from our time there and none that I know of that showed the trellis of baby pink roses and the white picket fence with columns topped by concrete planters of sedums – just the right height for inquisitive fingers – between our yard and our elderly neighbors. There was no gate. The centerpiece of their backyard was a small goldfish pond filled with waterlilies in summer. There was a beautiful weeping willow on the far side of the pond.  The garden beyond the fence was magical to me, even though I suppose by then it was not well maintained. It was not many years before the trellis came down and the roses disappeared, then the concrete planters.

In a narrow bed across the back of their house, they grew spearmint. Before they moved away, dad had mint plants growing in our yard. It was always a favorite in iced tea at our house, everyone got a sprig of their own in their glass.

This couple had a privet hedge that went from the back yard out to the sidewalk, down the street and back to the back yard. The front yard was filled with a Japanese red maple and many azaleas.. Everything looked lush and serene.

Where the hedge met the the fence along our yard, we had a Bridal Wreath Spirea. The long branches creating a shady tent like setting of green for our summer dollhouse and lunchroom. 

I like to think Dad knew how special this was and let us enjoy our playroom until we had outgrown it. I don’t recall the day it was cut down and roots removed to be replaced with a trellis and flowering vine. It simply passed as all childhood things do leaving only fading photos in the soul.

… to be continued