In my continuing series, “What We Did on Our Trip to the East Coast,” we next will explore our trip to Charleston, South Carolina. This is also a Money Pit entry, as one of the big reasons we went there was to get ideas for our backyard. The O’Shea swamp has at last dried up, but now the grass is all dead and the yard now looks like a tiny version of the Dust Bowl circa the 1930’s. *sigh*
So what, you ask? Well here’s the deal, after planting grass three times now, and having it all end in failure, we have decided that it’s time to admit defeat. We are going to give up on the green stuff and go for an all deck approach. My sister on hearing this recommended we take a look at the fabulous small gardens of Charleston (as we have a small yard). So we took a couple of days in between the wedding and the baby-viewing and flew down there from Nags Head to check the place out. A nifty side benefit was that we also got to see real live swamps and alligators. We also saw a bunch of very cool small urban gardens. They benefit from a much more humid and wet climate than we have in So Cal, but they also are heavy into brick and tile. Much of the architecture is antebellum if not in fact then in recreation. Charleston in general oozes Southern charm, but in a sophisticated, cosmopolitan way (they recycle! they have lots of non-smoking rules! they have wireless Internet!). I had and still have mixed feelings about the South and its history. Charleston certainly isn’t deep South prejudiced, but there is a subtle sense that all people aren’t created equal there that I’m not used to having lived my life in California. Here all issues of race are in your face and you can’t escape them. South Carolina seems to have moved from deep unapologetic prejudice straight to just ignoring it altogether, and folks accept that as the way it is. So I guess I’d say it’s a nice place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there. My $0.02.
But back to our yard (as, let’s face it, it’s all about us, after all): in the end we decided we liked brick the best versus wood deck or ceramic tile or loose gravel, and are now debating what kind of bricks to use – and there are quite a few from which to choose! I sort of like the unfinished look of plain brick, but Chuck leans toward the polished surfaces. He also is thinking he’d like to excavate a bit and make this new portion slightly sunken. This won’t be cheap, so it looks like the kitchen will be put off for another year. Oh well, so it goes with life in the Money Pit.