Something has been bothering me about this new garden ever since I started to work on it.

Yes, I never finished painting around the cheap aluminum windows, and the screen door could be replaced, and instead of ugly concrete there could be York stone and Staffordshire blue brick, with a footman to admit visitors. And the manzanita has grown so large that it’s hard to get up the steps, and a nice wrought iron railing on this side of the front stoop might be a good idea, to keep people from falling into the garden. All of that is extremely important and I’ll get to work on it right away, except for doing anything about the manzanita. That stays just as it is.

The garden does not need large rocks; it needs more plants, but that still isn’t it.

In the days when there was a green lawn and a long mixed border (shrubs, perennials, annuals) in the back yard, visitors would walk through the front yard in stunned silence if not disgust, see the green lawn and peonies and roses and stuff, and gasp with delight. A real garden. The idea that the front garden, except for the new part, had not been watered since 1987 was, and still is, viewed with deep suspicion. Like I was a commie or something.

So, with one subtle stroke, I fixed the problem.