It is always fun to do a makeover.  For this project our subject was a tiny pit filled with debris under a layer of sickly weeds.

My daughter lives in a small studio apartment in Pasadena.  Outside her front door is a community courtyard where the kids ride their skateboards.  Behind her apartment she had a small space filled with litter.  Melanie was looking for a place to sit outdoors with some degree of privacy. The filthy pit was her only option

Melanie’s space was further complicated by a raised walkway that divided a small area into two even smaller sections.  Eight feet from her back door is a concrete wall with a busy street on the other side.  If Melanie was to keep the walkway clear for access to the gas meters located two apartments further along the walkway, her outside living area was confined to the five by twelve foot section that was three feet lower than the walkway.  Actually, some of the twelve feet belongs to her neighbor.  We commandeered his space with his enthusiastic blessing.

At the east and west end of the pit, we had eight foot high concrete walls running perpendicular to the apartment.  They effectively walled off the pit creating a very private space with excellent shade at one end.

Our first step was to clean the litter and weeds out of the space.  We raked up roofing tile, bits of plastic, a small rug, aluminum cans, bottle caps, cardboard and numerous unidentified objects.  We pulled the sickly weeds growing in a mat of leaves and roots over a bed of coarse gravel.  We removed seven garbage bags of litter from this tiny space. 

Once we had raked the gravel until it was level, it was time to go shopping.  We were somewhat limited in our choices because everything must ride home in Melanie’s compact sedan.  

First, Melanie needed some sort of stairs to get into the pit.  She elected to go with concrete block as being the most stable material to build a stile over the low wall between the walkway and the pit.  She needed one step up on the walkway side and three steps down on the pit side.   We put the concrete blocks in the trunk of her car.

Every garden must have plants.  Knowing my daughter, I suggested succulents for this area that might get over one hundred degrees in the summer.  Still, she needed something with big leaves to soften the walls so we selected a banana because they grow fast.  She also wanted a Passion fruit because she loves the flowers.  We’ll see if it gets enough water to live. 

After the shopping we were exhausted and crashed for the night.  The next day Melanie and her sister Melissa left early to do more shopping.  I just handed them money and stayed on the sofa.  They returned with potting soil, pots, and modular tiles for decking.  

They found the decking material at IKEA.  It consists of wood strips on a plastic backing with a snap together system of pegs and holes.  Melanie found this easy to snap together.  I’m not sure how long it will last over the large gravel bedding.  I’m sure the tiles can be repaired with duct tape on the back. 

On the second day of work, Melissa repotted all the plants into the attractive pots.  I took pictures, directed, swept dirt, and washed Melanie’s two yellow outdoor chairs.  Melanie snapped the decking pieces together covering the gravel in the pit.  We moved a small bench that could be used for a table or seating into the pit.

By lunchtime on the second day, this tiny garden was ready for us to sit and enjoy our cheese and crackers outside in the sun.  The neighbor man came out to praise our transformation and a small lizard appeared on the wall beside the walkway to sun himself and inspect our handiwork.

The garden still needs a water feature or some statuary in the shadiest corner.  The lizard might appreciate a low bowl of water.  Melanie is considering Japanese style lanterns hanging from the railing of the deck above for lighting.  Perhaps a row of candles along the walkway wall would be sufficient. 

For now, this pleasant little garden is a joy to look out on and will provide a private place for sitting outdoors.  Perhaps the single man next door, will decide to visit my single daughter in this enchanting garden.

By Delinda McCann

I am the guardian/parent of a special needs child.  Jamie came to live with us when she was five--just before starting kindergarten.  When she came to live with us, I got a report from her previous preschool that listed, among her other skills, the ability to count to one hundred and to recognize all the letters of the alphabet and their sounds. 

At our house, she found the children’s alphabet book among the other books I gave her and obsessively named all the letters with their sounds--endlessly, day and night, and in the wee hours of the morning.  She definitely had OCD and knew her alphabet.

I enrolled Jamie in public school and handed the staff her evaluations from the early education preschool.  I then proceeded to ignore the school for two whole weeks until the school principal called and told me to come get her and to not bring her back until they set up a special class for her.

Since this child wasn’t in school, I set about teaching her the things she should learn in kindergarten.  She seemed eager to learn to read so I taught her to read.  Eventually, she went back to school in the special classroom, and I went about my business of napping while this high maintenance child was at school. 

In the spring of that school year, my hubby and I went to a parent/teacher conference where the teacher proudly announced that Jamie had learned to recognize fourteen letters of the alphabet.  (This conference my have been the beginning of my PTSD.)  I tried to politely explain that Jamie knew how to read.

Folks, this battle over whether or not Jamie could read raged for the rest of the school year and three quarters of the way through the next.  At home she was reading A. A. Milne’s Now We Are Six.  At school, she was up to recognizing twenty letters of the alphabet and could sound out simple words.  Talk about meeting others expectations!  Of course the staff at the school thought I was a crazy liar and called Child Protective Services.  Fortunately by this time, I’d found someone at the University of Washington to do an independent evaluation and had a report that confirmed my observations. 

I later learned that our experience with Jamie and the school is classic Fetal Alcohol Syndrome behavior.  She behaved as she needed to in order to fit in with the expectations of those around her.  We call this chameleon behavior.

Jamie was smart enough to do age appropriate lessons, and in the case of reading, performed above grade level, but she didn't live up to her abilities in the classroom.  Her story may sound like an extreme case of the chameleon characteristics of FAS, but I’ve heard thousands of similar stories.  Like others with her disability, she would conform to the expectations of the group she was in even to the point of appearing far less intelligent than she is.

Chameleon behavior is one of the core characteristics of the cognitive disabilities caused by prenatal exposure to alcohol.  Jamie’s behavior is classic for the full syndrome.  Chameleon behaviors can be less pronounced in individuals with less brain damage. 

I think this is a very important lesson about judging others.  In the case of my daughter, she will behave as you, the person judging her, may expect her to behave.  It is not uncommon for people with FAS or Autism to be much more intelligent than they appear.  Rather than making judgments and dismissing these individuals as something less than fully human, you need to consider the possibility that you may be a negative influence on this person’s behavior.

By:  Delinda McCann

The Cancer Survivor’s Garden:  A philosophy

While disease wracked the gardener, neglect destroyed the garden.  Great dead limbs fell on blackened rose bushes.  Weeds invaded from the neighbor’s, the lawn and birds dropped seeds from the sky.  Slopes eroded and the blackberries pulled over the deer fence.

Finally the day came when the gardener could stand and walk again.  She ventured into her once bountiful realm but didn’t have the energy to do more than look about her and then return to the warmth of her fireside.

While the gardener didn’t have strength to do much more than lift a spoon to her lips her mind knew what to do.  Her imagination saw visions of roses and lilies, daffodils and flowering current—all the plants, big and small that delight the senses year-round. 

Still, the energy to do the chores that built the original was lacking.  Years of illness had also depleted the savings account so money had become a problem.  “How to rebuild a garden when the energy of the gardener is missing?” became the biggest question.

The answer came slowly—one garden bed at a time.  Restoration would be slow.  It didn’t have to be done in one season.  What couldn’t be weeded could be mowed.  The chickens became the cultivators scratching out weeds and eating the tender shoots and roots growing where they didn’t belong.  The chickens fertilized as they cultivated each bed. 

The gardener’s mate would do the heavy work—moving brick and building raised beds with concrete block.  New bulbs were tucked in around the edges where the mower couldn’t reach them. 

For some areas that had become impenetrable, big equipment must be brought in to remove dead and diseased trees.  High places were smoothed out to fill the low places and new possibilities were revealed.  What had once been only a small trail through a tangled wood susceptible to forest fire became a transition zone open to the sun, new planting, and new habitat for birds and butterflies. 

The garden that slowly rises out of the wreckage of the old one isn’t the same as the garden that died.  The gardener who fell to disease is not the same as when she built the first garden.  Her new creation will be easier to tend.  The beds will be up where she can reach them without the challenge of getting up and down from the ground.  The paths will be wide enough for the riding mower.

A garden is a living thing.  It changes with time as does the gardener.  Adaptations will always need to be made.  What is old will pass away.  Plants die.  New plants take the place of the old ones.  New forms and purposes change the surface of the garden.

In the garden, as with all things, there is a balance.  The balance in the garden brings balance back into the gardener’s life.  Thus as the gardener heals the garden, the garden heals the gardener.  Together they heal the earth and all creatures who come into their realm.