Laguna Gloria in winter
Garden Bloggers Bloom Day has come and gone at Aurora with little to report beyond stunted roses. Austin’s protracted drought dovetails unavoidably with the economic meltdown in fostering doomy regret about the orgiastic spending on plants I’ve undertaken in my two years here at this garden. And even xeriscape plants seem a little like Marie Antoinette’s cake at this point. What, after all, can this environment sustain beyond prickly pear and yucca?So: new plan. Shabby-genteel ruin. The swept yard of the Mexican cottage. Ramshackle debris of leaf-mold and bare branches. One or two ancient and bearded palms rustling in the apocalyptic wind. Embracing the flawed in the natural world and finding beauty in the tarnished, the tattered, and the burnished with age.
Well, kinda anyway. As soon as I get some clumping bamboo and a Reve d’Or rose, I’ll be set.
4 comments:
Love it, Libby! Embrace what you can't change...just as soon as you buy a couple more plants. :-)
By the way, I adore your painting of Laguna Gloria.
You've captured my feelings exactly. This drought is major. I just don't feel right about replacing plants while watching the lake levels drop scarily. I've cut back to things that self-sow, a small herb garden, and more potted plants.
"Shabby-genteel ruin. The swept yard of the Mexican cottage."
Or maybe the CenTex Wuthering Heights?
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