There’s a bush,
There’s a bush,
There’s a bush
at the end of the driveway.
Meh. It doesn’t scan as well as There’s a Hole in the Bottom of the Sea, which I knew as a church-camp song and which my mother would have known as a Grand Ole Opry song if she had listened to same, which I don’t think she ever did, not being a fan of any genre of country music. Actual opry, albeit light, was more her style.
Anyway, there is a bush at the end of the driveway in our rented house in Tempe, far from any sea. It may not make for a good song but it’s quite a nice bush. I took a photo so you can see for yourselves. Here it is, as seen from the front. Nice, eh?
Of course, it’s one of those modest, muted-green, small-leafed plants that the desert is known for–not the splashy, dark-green, large-leafed plants of a rainforest, tropical or temperate–but it’s nice. It’s even been nicely shaped by someone who knows how.
But in keeping with this week’s accidental theme of considering different views, let’s take a look at the same bush from, well, a different point of view. Here it is again, as seen from the back.
Yikes. That’s . . . well, I think that sparse is the most complimentary that I can be, at least in my current incarnation.
The long-ago theatre geek in me sees a parallel to a stage set, where what the audience sees is all that matters.
The long-time gardener in me wishes that the original planter had not planted it quite so close to the brick wall/fence.
The even-longer-time editor in me recognizes a kindred soul in the ongoing pruner, trying to make the best out of what someone else chose to do rather than ripping it out altogether.
The might-have-been productivity expert in me marvels at the infrastructure-to-output ratio: the mass of apparently unproductive wood under the veneer of this season’s growth.
The never-was philosopher of life in me wonders if everything is like this bush (at the end of the driveway): owing its very self, both the nice bits and the sparse, to what has gone, and grown, before.
Your nutrient-deprived bush meets your de Saint-Exupery poem “Generation to Generation.” Such destructive social forces have robbed a generation of young people of that “carefully laden cargo of love” that I wonder what genius of botanical care can replenish the parched and starved bushes. Then, I remember children of other places, other times who have been “tenacious of life.” Those small acts of kindness we still can do may have deeper effects than we realize.
Laurna – Yeah, whether it’s shy on nutrients or space (or both!), your point holds. Even when we don’t have small children in our own homes, we can all have a positive effect on the generations that follow us by providing the nutrients to grow and the space within which to grow.
I guess if you decide to forego the pleasures of winter, you pay the price in funny looking bushes.
Tom
Tom – True. But if we miss winter too much we can find the polar vortex about 2 hours north of here, or 3 hours east.
Photography is a duplicitous art. I probably would have stuck with the front view. Interesting that it looks so thick from the front, but from the back you can see through it quite easily.
Judith – I rarely think about the branch structure that allows trees/bushes to have interior leaves, or that prevents it. This is pretty much in my face every time I drive out of the garage.
That’s a lot of hats. 😀
As for presenting your best side, preparing to visit John’s parents in the UK after 14 years absence, we bought ourselves a whole set of grown-up clothes. We went to our long-time neighbour, an old Hungarian woman (pistol of a gal) to show off our new “togs”. She took a good look and said, “Well, they don’t have to know how you REALLY live.” Too funny.
His folks had last seen John with shoulder-length bright red hennaed hair, low-slung bell-bottom jeans, a fringed cowboy jacket, an earring… and they next saw him dressed to the nines (even to a Burberry trench coat and hard shoes), arriving in a shiny rental car. His parents came out to meet us, all smiles. His father took me aside and whispered, “Thank you!”
Barbara – 🙂 Lovely. I guess it’s never too late to make a good first impression.
The bush is the classic Potemkin Village of the flora world. It is a set up for a Norman Rockwell sketch, with him inserting himself into the work, leaning out to peer behind the facade.
Ken – 🙂 If only I could paint . . .
Isabel – when next you are in Ottawa long after polar vortexes have gone back north where they belong, go check out the cedars, front and rear, that line the edges of many wooded areas in the NC area. You’ll see a great similarity to your bush at the end of your rented driveway.
Is it because plants demand sunlight, do you think?
John – It could be differential sunlight, but there’s a fair bit of exposure all round in this case. I think it’s been pruned back to stop it from over-growing the short brick wall. Next time the gardener wanders by, I should ask him. But I will look for those cedars.