The state of the garden

Including my rat colony

It’s that magic time, 5:56 p.m. on October 19 in Oakland, California, to be exact. But, you will know it by your own coordinates. It’s that magic time, near sunset, when the sun’s rays reach long across the garden. A kind of stillness pervades the air, even when there’s a pleasant breeze, such as now. It’s an anticipatory feeling, and no wonder. Because, in the garden, at least in my young, new garden, it’s the time when things happen.

Even when nothing is happening, so much is happening. The sunlight moves slowly up the tree, caressing it, really. There’s no other word for it. Now, in this moment, only the top third of my Garry Oak basks in the weakening sunlight, turning progressively pinker as the minutes slip past. My Tomentella Oak has more of the sun, all of her leaves are lit. And my BigLeaf Maple? Only the back of her is lit up now. There is something the tree branches and leaves do at this time that is enchanting. It’s like the sun and the tree are in a synergistic dance of joy.

It’s hard to type though because I have to keep stopping to check the progress of the evening. And I tell you, my dance practice, which I adore, has gone by the wayside since I began creating this garden. That’s because I spend inordinate amounts of time perched in my kitchen-nook window gazing my changing, growing, emerging garden—and all of the creatures emerging with it.

For example, a little bird—a finch? grey of breast, black of head, yellow of beak—has a favorite branch on the Tomentella Oak. It’s a branch with few leaves, so it gives her feet plenty of space. She keeps alighting and then disappearing, only to return. She likes this spot very much. She looks from side to side for a while, then begins to relax. She raises her clawed foot and scratches an itch, just like a dog or a cat would.

A few minutes ago, a pal of hers visited and then did the weirdest thing—he (?) shot almost vertically up into the air, so far, so fast! It was utterly hilarious, as though he were at the end of a returning yo-yo string. Then, he circled, returned, chirped at his friend, and… did it a second time!

But that’s not even the big stuff. Last night, branches of the Channel Island mallow kept dipping dramatically. When I peered more carefully, I was shocked to see… rats climbing the mallow. Three of them, to be exact. The mallow is at the back of the garden, not too close to the house. I know I should have been horrified, and I was a little, I suppose. But mostly, I was fascinated and amused. They did it over and over again. They were harvesting something—what I do not know. And then, as I watched them, another movement caught my eye, and I just barely managed to see a much larger creature… a rodent? If it was a rodent, it was the size of a chinchilla. I barely saw it; it was almost an apparition. But see it, I did, traipsing through my herb garden.

I knew there was a rat colony next door. I let the owner of the building know this a couple of months ago. I thought the rat families were living beneath what appeared to be an abandoned duct of some kind and told the owner that. He had someone come out and remove it. But now it’s clear they either made a new home, or are actually nesting in the giant shrub in the corner of the yard near where the duct was. And, I know they’ve made a tunnel into my compost bin. So, I’m feeding them.

But, let me tell you what I saw last week. At this time, the magic hour, I was watching the light caress the trees, as usual, when suddenly something large, brown, and black swooped in low over my mallow and disappeared behind the Japanese privet I inherited (the only living thing in the yard a year ago when I moved in). (Side note: OMG, a juvenile rat is at this moment climbing in the mallow, comically bending slender branches down at dramatic angles, holding on for dear life.)

I trained my eyes on the last spot I’d seen the creature that swooped in. I barely saw it, but I knew it was a raptor. A few minutes later, it broke from the shrub and flew low, just a few feet off the ground, right into the briar bush next door. I saw him again, black and brown and barred. He was a hawk or a falcon or some kind, and utterly beautiful. He took my breath away. And huge, he was huge. And he was here, in the middle of the cement jungle that is downtown Oakland, for my/our rats.

So, you see, we’ve created this ecosystem.

Maybe it’s disgusting that I have a rat colony on the premises, or at least dining here, on my compost, my vegetable garden, and my mallow. And maybe I will have to eliminate it. I need to get advice. But if there’s a way to live in harmony with these creatures that also have a right to live, I’m perfectly okay with that.

Imagine! A raptor visiting my garden! My fledgling garden which was literally a cement pad a year ago.

How can it be that I have so much going on now? It’s incredible, but I do. I’ve been eating French figs from my tree most days the past couple of weeks. I’m harvesting tomatoes from my three plants. The persimmons on the Fuyu are bright orange. The leaves on the tree are still green, but darkening and drying at the edges, and I know one morning very soon, I will awaken, and the tree will be ablaze with vermilion leaves. I know this from experience because I planted a Fuyu at my old house on Guido Street, and I never tired of seeing that transformation occur. It was always so exciting and touching. I was always calling the kids out to see, to witness.

Nature does repair. Look what she’s doing here, with just a little encouragement. Water, fir mulch, compost, more water. And tons and tons of fava beans because the nursery manager said they have nodules on their roots that fix nitrogen and deliver nutrients to the soil—soil, in my case, that was covered by cement for decades. I found not a single earthworm in all my planting.

But I’ve added them. My neighbor across the street, a former Lieutenant with the Oakland Police Department, has a worm bin, and she gave me two containers of worms that I carefully, hopefully, seeded into the soil.

And guess what? I had Monarch caterpillars nestled in my milkweed—three to be exact—and I watched them get fat, fatter every day. They were striped black, blue, yellow, and white—what an extravagant combination. And that blue? Electric blue. Cobalt blue. I wanted to see them make chrysalises, of course, something I’d wanted to witness since I was a little girl. But, they’ve disappeared, either picked up by the birds visiting my garden, or else they’ve moved on to a more sturdy object to attach themselves to.

My trees are young. My plants are young. My arugula from the spring self-seeded like crazy, and I now have bitter-greens salads every night, for free. Cilantro too, tons of basil, and, soon, flowers… they’re coming too. I planted lupine, feverfew, grama grass, bachelor’s buttons, penstemon, asters, amaranth, forget-me-nots, yarrow of every color, pink poppies, foxgloves, ‘Black Swan’ poppies, borage, black-eyed susans, pink calendula, apricot cosmos, and chervil. All seeds. All over the garden. I don’t remember what I put where. We’ll just have to see what happens come spring.