Birth of a Garden

I took on a new project today. This back yard has been unused for anything but the storage of junk these past six or eight years. In the photo I have already cut away all the low branches, but next I'll cut down all four of the smaller trees, unless the one farthest from the camera proves too troublesome. The huge tree, around which the fence carefully goes, holds a very wide and thorough shade canopy anyway, and some amount of sunlight would give the space a better mood, I think. What I have in mind is a picnic table that wraps around the tree (replacing that part of the fence), a set of seats for viewing films on the far wall (as was done years ago), a stone or brick barbeque suitable for an annual pig roast, decorative plants and pathways, and some day, perhaps a long mural on the wall at left. By the way, the huge tree is an Ailanthus, which means that it's a weed with something like a six-foot diameter trunk (I'll measure it tomorrow). They dominated this whole section of the city from the early 1960s through the late 1990s, when there was much abandonment and despair here. They will grow from a crack in a wall, in a gutter, or anywhere, and they grow fast. Unless fate somehow takes them down, they just keep on growing.

This little pocket garden is behind a small independent bookstore operated by the Philadelphia Industrial Workers of the World, a/k/a the Wobblies. I've been a member for twenty years, and it feels good to be active in it again with a creative project like this.