Posterity

Posterity

      Sometime after I moved into my current home a neighbor told me about the people who used to live across the street. They took pride in their home and grounds, both of which were in Better Homes and Gardens Magazine. Time passed, eventually the house became too much for them and they moved away. Were they thinking of what their place would look like in a hundred years? Should I?

      Consider:

      The view across the street when I moved in was of trees and some bushes, decorated with a large variety of cars and trucks, many of them rusted and no longer in working order. The new family had driven over the plantings for the more or less permanent parking of their vehicles. A rusted truck in the front yard is a traditional decoration in some parts of the country. I could make out the bones of the original garden, which I had never seen, and notice some odd, large shrubbery that must have been a centerpiece when the photographers showed up.

      Some later occurrences meshed with the above:

      A) When a next door neighbor died his home was purchased by a family that grew up in a land with few trees. The centuries-old oaks came down despite my protestations about how it would look in our heavily wooded neighborhood and the denuded lot made the street look like it was missing a tooth.

     B) The house on the other side of me is owned by a man who is renting it out but promises he will take down all the trees and build a Mc-mansion. After all, the trees make it harder for the construction workers to build and they might fall on the house! (the trees, I think, not the construction workers)

     C) Attending some planning meetings for the Rt. 1 corridor where I live, a plan was revealed to have the DC Metro line extend into our neighborhood in twenty or thirty years. However, the subway people won't consider it until the population supports such an extension. That meant that the area must be leveled and high-rises constructed to draw in the people.

      How does all of the above fit together? I'm landscaping a garden for myself, my wife and the people I know. The county will not take my half acre for a park the way the Margaret White Estate in Annandale, VA will be preserved. When they pull me out of the house feet-first those who move in next will bulldoze the property for soccer fields (remember – the trees might fall on your house!). The buyers, in turn, will be uprooted when the county uses eminent domain to take the property so that high-rises may be built (Think of the tax base! And the Metro!).

      When I put that azalea over there because it looks good it has to be without a concern for posterity and how it will fit into the garden plan years after I'm gone. It has to look good NOW and for a decade or so hence.

      After that only some pictures on the net will be left. Please visit (both the garden and the photos).

 https://goo.gl/photos/g7XdWc1NXy93wBwJ8