Fertile Imaginations Make Gardens Worthy of Tours

We rent a duplex with a big lawn--so green right now it hurts your eyes. Vines blanket the fences; ivy, bougainvillea, fig, honeysuckle, star jasmine, yellow jasmine. At this time of year, to step outside is like going from black-and-white air to Technicolor air, in terms of fragrance.

In front, there are tall cedars--which drop their little soccer-ball cones for the amusement of our two cats--and the usual landscaping shrubs. The shrubs have gone through as many different styles as Whoopi Goldberg’s hair.

The landlady’s gardeners always come when we are at work. This used to make for a problem. When we would come home in the evening, tall, stately bushes would be reduced to flat-top footstools. If these guys were Army barbers, GIs would have to count their ears before and after.

Moreover, vines would be uprooted, leaving great gaping holes in our privacy.

We’d leave notes on the bushes and vines. Do Not Cut! Do Not Cut! The neighborhood was fascinated. Passersby would stop to read our bushes. But the gardeners obviously didn’t. Maybe as they approached, their 100-horsepower hackers blew away the notes.

Finally, we wrote a stern letter warning the gardeners that they faced dismissal unless they changed their habits.

A kindly young neighbor who worked at home delivered it and supplemented it with his own invention, he informed us later. “This is serious,” he told the gardeners. “These people are Druids, and they believe that every time you cut a bush, you cut a year from their lives.”

Ever since, everything in the garden has been lovely. All it took, we realized, is personal contact and a fertile imagination. There should be plenty of both today at the annual garden tour and plant sale of the Pacific Palisades Garden Club.

It will be from 1 to 5 p.m., starting at 307 N. Bristol Ave., Brentwood. The plant sale and refreshments will be at the seventh stop: 14820 Pampas Ricas Drive, Pacific Palisades. Information: (310) 454-6354. (A donation of $7.50 is requested, but not insisted on. Children 12 and under can attend for free.)