I live on a very steep hill. The driveway to our house is a short causeway over the decline from the street to our garage. There are steps on both sides of the house so that tradespeople can get to our furnace and hot water heater in our basement. It is a topsy turvy house if you are used to traditional colonials, as I have been. The garage is on top, then the communal space is below with kitchen, my office, dining room and living room, and finally one floor below that holds all of the bedrooms. We go down to sleep, not up.

Since it is a 70 degree slope, no gardening is possible in the front or sides of the house, so I have deck gardens on the steps and landings to our front door, and on the decks at the back of the house which offer panoramic views of San Francisco and the Bay. I’ve learned from a helpful friend how to construct these deck gardens and have rigged, with my husband’s enthusiastic participation, a drip system for watering. I actually have more garden than I’ve ever had on level property, having come to the pursuit of flowers rather late in life.

What I find fascinating is that the plants have their own cycles, not just of blooming and greening, but of robustness and dormancy. Nothing dies off in my California deck gardens. Wait! That’s not true. Things do die off, but when that happens it is mostly due to my lack of knowledge and not the plant’s unwillingness to grow. I’ve learned about fish emulsion (pee yeuw) and cuttings, thinning out, and whacking away at spindly tall stems. I was quite timid about this to begin with, but now am bold in my pulling and cutting, regrowing in water, and transplanting to better locations. I know what likes sun and what needs to hide shyly in the shade. I’ve tried my entire adult life, for instance, to grow both jade plants and hydrangea with no success. Now I have a jade plant that won’t quit and a hydrangea with enormous pink blossoms bursting out of its container.

This morning I’m noticing the cycles of growth. My geraniums are spindly and I’ve cut them all back. My lavender has gone wild and woody, and I’ve cut that back too. My upper deck looks like a little boy with his first summer haircut, kind of exposed and not too healthy. This is the way I feel when my work has taken the sap out of me. I want to keep doing it, and occasionally, I need to be whacked back to regroup and regrow.