We’ve been back in our flooded house for just over a year. The place is very different since we changed some rooms and went with a different style for the interior. The windows are new thermals that look nothing like the 70 year old casement types that used to be here. The kitchen is a study in solid Maple, Green-Black granite and stainless steel. The pantry is no longer a laundry room… it is now 14 x 7 ft of food storage. Geo-thermal heats and cools the place and the hot water is almost free. Wood paneling lines one end of the Living room and the Game room is still awaiting a pool table and furniture, but all in all the place is sweet for the time being.
In many ways I’m at peace with things here, at peace until I look out of the windows.
Four plus years post-Flood the yards resemble Dresden after the bombings. The contractors’ machines churned up the fountains, ponds and flower beds raising the house. The side yard has taken a year to stabilize since the geo-thermal well was drilled down 250 ft. The Flood killed the citrus and pecan trees (One bizarre citus tree remains, but it needs a ton of sugar to become edible). The massive vegetable gardens are gone, and I can’t bring myself to plant food stuffs in the soil. I don’t know what the presents were that the Flood delivered to us that fateful day and I am not about to injest them.
Some trees, an elephant ear plant and one old rosebush survived the Hell that was our wonderful little place. Those are the treasures.
And then the Green Monster decided to occupy the destroyed landscape. Yes… weeds have come to claim this place as their new headquarters in their attempt to overgrow the entire city of New Orleans. They have come to assimulate us in their chaotic frenzy of luxurious growth and the insect menagerie that call such areas home. It looks like the Triassic Era as there are large amphibians and reptiles swarming across the terrain. Dinosaurean-like egrets walk the yards hunting the the little green lizards. Squirrels mock me as they chomp down the few plantings I have tried to establish. Giant bugs demand entrance to the house as if it was their due.
The “Wild” thinks it owns this place. There seems to be nothing to stand in it’s way of total domination of the area. It will reclaim that which Humans have lived on for almost 200 years, but there is a problem…
I AM the Swamp Witch, and I am now mouting an offensive to corral these little sprites, cast my vision upon the ground and create a place of harmony within the center of New Orleans. The Witches’ Garden is now taking form.
There will be no tactical chemical assaults. No massive burnings scorching the landscape. Instead there will just be me coaxing the Monster to hold to it’s own spaces and allow me mine (“one person’s weed is anothers flower”). Anarchistic chaos will be replaced with my own brand of chaos. There will be raised herb and veggie beds, shrubs and exotics, trees from all over the World. My waterfall and ponds will be rebuilt as one watercourse with my own little railroad. There will be arbors and container orchards. This is my little island of insanity surrounded by Modern brainlessness and angst. I will win, and yes the Green Monster will have it’s place in the whole scenario. This is the way it must be.
This whole crazy scenario concerns 1/3 of an acre in Suger Hill, the stepping off point for Gentilly (which didn’t exist until 1909, 100 years after this place was inhabited)… a place I’ve named the Lost Neighborhood since I-610 cut us off from everything else. A small hamlet of 60+ homes, mixed folk and income. It is also peaceful and safe. Though I have lived many places haflway around the globe, I am back home and have staked my place, and this is the last place I will ever call home in this Life. And this place in the Future is a gift to our neighborhood, and I want folks to be able to enjoy it.
This is Part One of a continuing (unless the Kudzoo strangles me first) series of essays about re-landscaping a destroyed parcel of land that I wish to return to a place of meditation and connection.
I will go in depth on all of the things that will be done here, including pics and products, as I move forward. These are techniques I have either used or studied since the Mid 60′s. The technologies involved will also be explained as well as tips from others as the project moves forward. And there will be tales of insanity since I tend to attract that genre.
There will also be a meditation labyrinth to build and info of how to do a greenhouse properly. (that’s a nightmare in itself, but winnable) There will be datails on rainwater collection/storage that will help with things around your yard.
I hope to shed some light on the geology and history of the area as part of this project. It will sort of round things out, and for the folks not from New Orleans it will illuminate the possibilities one may encounter when re-doing their own yards. So with all that said, next month should be about planting trees. shrubs and breaking down the old water toys. The little railroad will be a joy to explain, and the NOLA Bloggers all have places on it (that’s right).
‘Til the next post, I should be planting some Maples and shrubs and maybe starting the meditation area. I’d like it if you followed along. This could be fun, or just the Kudzoo will get me and you’ll get a thrill. Who cares? It’s just about living and enjoying your surroundings.
BTW- I don’t do lawns. Boring stuffs. (and if y’all are nice, I may be a sharin’ my recipes with ya’s from stuffs from the garden. Okay?)
Blessings!
P.S.- I will take suggestions Darlin’s.










