Our native meadow yard in full summer bloom
Almost 14 years ago, my husband and I leapt off a traditional career path to move home to the small town in south-central Colorado where he had lived as a child. Searching for a more sustainable lifestyle and creative inspiration, we squeezed our household, including college-age daughter, Molly, one rambunctious dog, and two home offices into a tiny historic duplex in a formerly wrong-side-of-the-tracks neighborhood within walking distance of downtown.
By the end of our first summer, it was clear we needed more space, including a place for Richard’s storage-unit-full of tools and my garden. So while Molly worked her summer job as a barista and Richard traveled on consulting work, I wrote and prowled nearby neighborhoods searching for a chunk of affordable property. When I stopped to peer into a grimy window in the deserted brick building right across the alley I had passed regularly but never really looked at before, I found the place of our dreams.
The open inside was bigger than the entire duplex, just right for Richard’s sculpture studio. I called friends in real estate and learned that the building sat at one corner of half-a-block of abandoned industrial property, offering frontage on a small urban creek and a view of the nearby peaks, plus plenty of space for a house and garden. It was perfect for us.
The place of our dreams--before
Despite appearances. The shop was filthy, its brick parapets and chimneys crumbling; its expansive slope of metal roof leaked. Knee-high weeds and rusting debris choked its sprawling yard, enclosed by a 6-foot-tall chain-link fence topped by three strands of sagging barbed wire. Its block of urban creek, channelized a century before by railroad construction, ran ruler-straight between banks that sprouted chunks of waste concrete, asphalt, and more weeds.
Undaunted, we scraped together a down payment, and soon became the proud owners of what we only half-jokingly call our “decaying industrial empire.”
We’ve spent the decade-plus since making ourselves at home. Healing our much-abused land came first. So before we detached and rolled up the chain-link fence, coiled the barbed wire, yanked the posts, and donated all of that to the city public works department; before Richard cleared the old shop building down to its graceful timber-frame and brick bones and began fixing it up; before we filled construction dumpsters with large debris to clear a space for our house-to-be; before we began building that house, we set to restoring the native plant community, scraped away more than a century before when the railroad sold our bit of river-gravel-topped mesa just off downtown to a lumberyard, which built its millwork shop there. (In the 1920s, the property became a bulk-oil distribution company, complete with a siding where tanker cars pumped their viscous cargo into storage tanks).
And after (a lot of restoration work)
Today, the half-block that was so ugly when we bought it–or it adopted us, I’m not sure which–that long-time neighbors remember little about the place, boasts a native meadow yard that blooms in a traffic-stopping display of wildflowers in summer. Hummingbirds zip through to sip nectar, butterflies flit from flower to flower, and our organic kitchen garden, sprouting from raised beds where the above-ground oil tanks once stood, feeds our household and the neighbors, as well as mountain bluebirds, violet-green swallows, a garter snake fat from eating pillbugs, and so far, we’ve identified more than a dozen kinds of native bees.
I’ll tell the story of how we “re-greened” this battered chunk of property, and the gifts it has given us, in subsequent posts. Next time: Weeding and Selecting Pioneers in Restoration
(Excerpted from my memoir, Walking Nature Home, A Life’s Journey and Zone 4 Magazine)
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What a wonderful story and journey. A tip-of-the-trowel to you and yours.
Lisa, Thank you for that tip of the trowel. Our place has given more to us in inspiration and joy as we’ve gotten to watch it “wake up” than we’ve given it…
Susan J. Tweit recently posted..Garden report- Moving the farm and blooming time
What a lovely post! It’s so amazing that you were able to see the beauty of your land underneath all of that construction debris, and to embark on this journey of restoring and healing this piece of earth. I can’t wait to hear more
Carole Sevilla Brown recently posted..Whose Garden is it Anyway
Carole, I really do think our blighted industrial property “adopted” us–it spoke to us from the first, ugly and neglected as it was. Which may say something about how crazy we are. ;~)
Susan J. Tweit recently posted..Garden report- Moving the farm and blooming time
Susan, thanks for sharing your tale of restoring a very damaged landscape…which is an inspiration to all of us but especially your neighbors! Your native meadow is like a Monet painting – beautiful!
Ellen, I think our neighbors thought we were crazy. Now they know we are crazy, but at least they appreciate the wildflowers and native grasses as an improvement over the oil tanks and junk. We were on a national garden tour last July (the North American Rock Garden Society toured our place and the pocket park next door that we designed and maintain as a demonstration garden for our small town) and about 120 people toured our yard. I think that really impressed our neighbors!
Susan J. Tweit recently posted..Garden report- Moving the farm and blooming time
How wonderful! It’s so awesome you were able to have both the vision AND the know-how–and the energy!–to pull it off! Very inspiring!
Ursula, The vision really came from the land, I think. The energy was the biggest part (since we had no budget for restoration). The know-how also came from the land–I looked at similar places nearby and made lists of what might grow in our place, and then I paid attention to the cycles of weather and growth. You can learn a lot by paying attention to a place…
Susan J. Tweit recently posted..Garden report- Moving the farm and blooming time
Love those before/after photos, Susan. What a huge investment–and a miraculous return!
Thanks, Susan A! I’m hoping for the same miraculous return in the current journey, as you know. And we’re off over the mountains today for Richard’s first Avastin infusion. Fingers crossed!
Susan J. Tweit recently posted..Garden report- Moving the farm and blooming time
Crazy – but in the nicest possible way. The way that makes a difference, for the better. I haven’t read your books, so I’m grateful to follow this restoration here. Your native meadow is a place of healing and nature growing.
Elephant’s Eye recently posted..May garden walk with my BlotSprouts
Thanks for that “nicest possible way,” Diana! I hope to make a difference by living what I believe and perhaps in my small way helping others see the land as a living community to which we humans also belong. This drought year, my native meadow is looking pretty dry and sparse, but there’s green coming even still.
Susan J. Tweit recently posted..Garden report- Moving the farm and blooming time
“You can learn a lot by paying attention to a place..” so true, Susan. I believe Observation is key. Thank you for sharing this uplifting story. It is wonderful to see the Land returned to its former glory! I am glad you had the vision & energy… I think the bees & butterflies are too.
Kathy @nativegardener recently posted..Matilija Poppies- I Owe You So Much
Kathy, I agree that observation is key to understanding the community of the land or garden or whatever. We don’t learn if we don’t pay attention. (That’s true for life in general, as well!) It’s been wonderful to watch the wild community of our place re-weave itself as species return in response to the pioneering plants we started with. Plants communicate with fragrant compounds, and the bees and butterflies and other insects arrive in response to those scent trails. What a miracle it is!
Susan J. Tweit recently posted..Garden report- Moving the farm and blooming time
Susan, what an amazing transformation and beautiful reward for your intense work and persistence. Walking out your door in spring and summer into those flowers and bees and birds… bliss. You are an inspiration! And it is my hope that the healing energy you and Richard wrapped around the land springs forth from the land to heal its protectors.
Jude Whelley recently posted..Mothers Day 2011
Jude, We didn’t imagine how much healing energy and inspiration we’d get back from our work to restore our place to health, and that continues to be an incredibly heartening daily gift. Thank you for the beautiful wish.
Susan J. Tweit recently posted..Garden report- Moving the farm and blooming time