My Old House

No pictures to share. But I used to live in the cutest little yellow and white cottage with a picket fence. The house was built in 1917 and I was only the third owner. There were dozens of types of flowers and an equal number of types of bushes and shrubs in the large garden situated in and surrounded by a very lush and long and soft green lawn. The steps and paths and front porch were slate. The undulating fence was capped off with copper finials which mellowed with a verdigris patina. My house was, for sure, THE cutest house on the block. I had a gardener who came regularly and always had the place looking bright and cheery and kept. The sprinkler system insured that all stayed green and in bloom. In the back yard was a peach tree, a plum tree, a loquat tree, some other trees I can’t remember the names of, and a fenced off garden filled with with blackberry bushes. The front yard sported a profusely flowering Jacaranda tree and another tree with flashy peachy-orangey-red blossoms. In the spring the whole 7,000 square feet of my garden and yard was a riot of colors. Even in the winter it was a beautiful collection of evergreens and grasses and winter blooms.

It is spring now. My brother’s yard is exploding with roses and hibiscus and, well, you’d have to ask him the names of all his plants and flowers!

I sold the house and moved to Colorado going on three years ago.

I am visiting my family this week back in Southern California. My brother lives but five blocks or so from my old house. I drove by it yesterday. I wondered what beautiful things were happening in MY old gardens!

The man who bought my house is a well known local real estate developer. There is a for sale sign in the front yard with his name on it. I guess his plans for the property didn’t pan out.

The lawn is dead.

The plants are dead.

The flower beds are dead or dying and overgrown with weeds.

The roses bushes are shriveled and brown.

Even the trees are brown, and drooping.

The property looks pitiful.

It doesn’t look or feel at all like I ever lived there.

It doesn’t appear that anyone at all is living there.

Why would someone let a place go like that?

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