These are the people in my neighborhood.

The problem with being in a community garden, a garden meant to draw the neighbors together, a garden for all residents of Midtown, is that then one must deal with the people of the community. You might think a person could just go, garden, and mind her own business, but if, one day, by accident, a person made an offhand comment that perhaps there were better uses for empty plots and was the roster up to date and the county wasn’t going to like it if we don’t clear the pathways, she might find herself the manager of that community garden within the week. Because I haven’t lived an entirely wicked life, karma sent me Denise a few months later, who co-manages with even more ideas and energy. Because karma has not forgotten the debauchery of the hippie co-op, karma also sent me the Drunk Old Guy from Another Culture and the Overwrought Melodramatic Girl.

Drunk Old Guy showed up one day when we had a plot available; I had only just put him on the roster when Melodrama rushed over to tell me he had been expelled from another garden for groping people. Fuck. He’s ours now and he is ours all day long. Drunk Old Guy loves the garden. He’ll tell anyone it is the only place he has in the world. I believe him because he is there for almost all the daylight, drinking and smoking and leering. He never progressed to groping me but his leer is so heavy that I plant my tomatoes in screen formation between my plot and his. I can’t stop his gaze but we worked out an arrangement the day after I played in an all-night Ultimate tournament. That afternoon I was too messed up to do anything but go to my garden; all I wanted in the world was quiet, undemanding chores. He came rushing over to hug me and I had nothing left for civility. It must have been quite a glare, ‘cause he backed away scared and didn’t speak to me for months. Perfect.

Drunk Old Guy is annoying and Melodrama wallowed in it. Everything he did hurt her personally; his smoking damaged her tomatoes; his plants crowded her walkway; he gave her advice; he looked at her; he was always there. She complained to me in person, and I finally came home to an email from her. Drunk Old Guy made being at the garden unbearable – the garden should be a place of peace for her but he ruins it – because of him she doesn’t know if she has the strength to stay in her plot even though she loves it so – she is crying even as she types to me. I forwarded her email to Denise and started thinking about what to do.

I couldn’t think of a solution. Mediate between them? As if he were sober and she were reasonable? And how long would THAT last? Move one of them? All the plots were full. Scold him for staring at women? He’ll grovel, apologize and keep doing it. Nothing sounded promising. Denise called a day later and asked what I thought. I sort of went over ideas for a joint mediation and rules we could propose. I petered out and asked what she thought. “Well,” she said, “I think interpersonal relationships between gardeners aren’t our problem.”

I was astounded. My jaw dropped, like the cliché. It had never occurred to me that I didn’t have to solve a problem just because someone brought it to me. It was an epiphany. I loved it. I called Melodrama and told her we weren’t going to handle it. I ended up listening to her cry for an hour, but once she told me her grievances again she said she felt much better. She would talk to Drunk Old Guy herself.

I haven’t seen Melodrama this season and I think Drunk Old Guy won’t be at the garden much longer. Denise and I finally did have to confront him about a number of grievances. He agreed not to do them again, but I don’t think he can keep to his agreement. I’m not looking forward to evicting him, but I won’t miss him. I won’t have to. The neighborhood will bring some other crazy person to bloom in our garden.

They should be glad I don't have a couch out there.

I really love plants. Plants are the first thing I see in any setting; they’re the markers in my mental maps. If I have been to your house once, I can almost certainly tell you how it is landscaped, but I could ride in your car for years and not be able to tell you the make, much less the model. It took me a long time to realize that telling people to turn at the really stunning tea tree didn’t convey good information to them.

I pay a lot of attention to houseplants, too. I believe you can gauge the quality of a couple’s relationship by their houseplants. Thriving houseplants, couple is happy. Couple is fighting, houseplants droop or die back. I figure most of that is that unhappy couples don’t have the love left to tend their plants, and some of that is that Plants Respond to the Energy Around Them.

The more you like plants, the less you like lawns. I gave up on my lawn four years ago. I don’t even dislike yardwork; I just resent putting effort into a lawn I don’t want. Right now the front yard is full of three foot tall flowering weeds. I was surprised by how much an untended lawn offended my male neighbors. Female neighbors don’t care. I’ve told them I would keep it neat if they ever ask me and they just laugh about it. Male neighbors started by making jokes about how I need a man around the house, then offered their gas-powered lawn mower, then mentioned that gardeners aren’t that expensive, then said that my lawn brings down property values for everyone, then stopped talking to me, then got me cited for blight. Twice*. Male neighbors can suck me.

For all that my yard looks like an untended mess, I know every plant in it. Some plants I planted in there; those I watch carefully. I live on a busy street and people steal my flowers all the time. They likely have the wrong idea; they think I don’t care because I’m not tending it. I do care; I know to the day which plants will be flowering and I notice the theft the instant I step out the door. The clear remedy, which I’ll apply as soon as I can afford it, is for me to rip out the lawn, put a low symbolic fence up, and plant lots and lots of beautiful plants for the insects and me.




*The blight citation isn’t a big deal. They give me a couple weeks to mow my lawn. Since mowing it takes a couple hours once it is three feet high and I avoid a $700 fine, I just figure I’m making $350 an hour to mow, which is the highest wage I’ve ever earned.