The Secret Garden

Well, it’s not really so secret: this vaguely illegal garden sits at the corner of J and Second Streets in Davis, right next to the railway lines. It changes with the seasons; it’s bedecked with plastic pumpkins around halloween, which morph into poinsettias in time for Christmas; full of pastels for easter.

This garden is tended by someone who-like Al of the 71-doesn’t have a whole lot in the way of possessions. But he (I’ll call him Arthur, though that’s not his name) is of the world, perhaps more than you or I. Because he just decided, one day, to make this little corner of Davis more beautiful so that a benefactor might be able to see it on his way to work by bike. Just like that. (He waters it copiously with a hose from across the street.)

The garden that started out with a couple of potted plants is growing, and now has a second section to the right of the photo. Nobody can really see it from a moving train, and many people who head down 2nd Street barely give it a thought. There is nowhere in Davis quite so colorful.

Which just goes to show. Our gardener friend is colorblind. (It’s a secret.)

This post is for the Ecotone Wiki’s joint blogging topic, Secret Places, for July 15. The wiki has recently been vandalized by spammers; we’re trying to keep it up and running but it’s a bit of a battle.