The "Garden"

It's a real pity that I can't show you pictures of the worst condition the garden has been in this year. Apparently, I hear from my realtor, Patty Hyun (Highly highly recommended!), that the neighbors complained to the city of Oakland to get them out to the house and fine the two brothers who own it as they'd let everything go far too much to seed. The grass was four feet high throughout the back and mercifully the front was only two and a half feet tall. There were huge thorny towers of weeds just as tall. I'm not terribly familiar with weed types although I'm sure I will be soon enough. Some of these giants I'm sure are the type you usually step on in the lawn, curse, then rip out at only an inch tall - but they were as high as my chest. After the city got onto them, one of the brothers apparently went out and used a strimmer on the majority of the grass and I'd, of course, forgotten to take pictures when I visited the week before. But I got ones of the aftermath which looks almost worse for being able to see more of the plants behind the grass.

So let's start the tour at the back of the house going toward the back of the yard.

Here you see our lovely red cement patio with it's decorative grass growing between the slabs. Also, you can see a small example of our patio furniture - it does seem that the debris there and much more will be coming with the house as it still hasn't been cleared out. Among the weeds, there is a rose bush, some kind of bulbous plant showing its broad leaves and two big Oleanders (only one having nearly pretty flowers).

A step further along and you can see the rest of our left-side neighbor's garage and quite a few more weeds. Strangely enough, though, there are quite a few interesting plants as well. The lemon is pretty obvious with some of its fruit hanging at the top - delicious, by the way, we've already absconded with about 10 lemons and made one batch of lemonade with more to come. There are at least four different rose bushes, all of them far overgrown but in great condition. When I was out this time, I had my clippers with me so I cut a bunch of long stem reddish orange roses for Patty and took a bunch of reddish pink ones for myself. There's also a hidden red pelargonium somewhere in the corner, I've seen its leaves poking through the rose bushes. Then, in the very middle is a Sea Lavender or Statice - not really my style plant. There's also a small clump of Aeonium or some such succulent behind it. I was thinking I'd just have to throw them out but found yesterday that a co-worker of mine would gladly take them both off my hands. Lastly, if you want to see those huge weeds, take a slightly closer look around those roses.

Now a small look back before continuing:

Also, as a small side note, you may be able to see that our garage is a bit lacking in, let's say, structural rigidity... but that's okay! We'll be knocking it down and getting a new one built. But more on that later.

Moving on, behind the garage, I don't have picture of it but there's a nice green and yellow mat of Oxalis pes-caprae! It should be a fun adventure trying to root out all those tiny little pests. One good thing is that the area where they seem to be most prevalent is just behind the garage and we plan on pushing back the earth behind a retaining wall there.

In this picture, you can see our sprawling overgrown blackberry bushes. Silly me, I didn't know what these were until the other day, thinking they were some kind of weedy single white roses or something. But despite not being cared for at all for at least a couple years, these vines are setting fruit right now. I could see the half berries half flowers yesterday when I went by the house to steal lemons.

Notice the large number of plants in that small corner too. There are tons of blackberry vines now flowering and numerous little blackberry sprouts, as well as nasturtiums, oxalis, grass (of course), and two very deformed pear trees. One in the front obviously, though again very badly pruned, and one swallowed up by the vines in the corner (I just discovered it as I was uploading the picture actually!). And somewhere deep in there, one more rose with deep pink flowers.

Now, only two more turns and we're through. Next is the other back corner - a mass of tall weeds and grape vines coming over the fence from our rear neighbor.

But wait, when I went in the tangle yesterday to see if there was any fruit developing on the vines, I found that they were clinging to something growing on my side of the fence. Not sure yet what it is with all the vines and weeds in the way but I think it might be some new fruit to be identified.

Lastly, our pretty but battered looking Magnolia tree. I'm not sure yet what type of Magnolia it is but at least I know it's not the type I hate - I can't stand the ones with dark green and copper colored leaves. It had quite large saucer-type blossoms when we first went into escrow and now has very nicely soft light green leaves. Hopefully, I'll be able to prune, feed and water it and the other desirable plants in the garden to health.