Borrowed Scenery

"Borrowed Scenery" is a concept in landscape gardening and traditional Japanese and Chinese gardens (shakkei) in which the surrounds of your garden far beyond the borders is part of the visual "field" or "impact" of your garden - everything looks more expansive and lusher than it actually is, because you can see the scenery beyond. The trouble with "borrowed scenery" is that people can take it away. When I bought my house two years ago, one of the things that most attracted me to it was the fact that the garden, though small and pokey, was a green oasis thanks to the hedge and trees in the garden behind me. The people who owned the house had filled it with greenery, and that greenery was mine by extension. That house sold a couple of months ago, and yesterday morning as I was getting ready for work I heard the new owners talking to some gardeners about "tidying all this up". I was worried they might cut things back so much that it would let the street lights from the highway cut through. It was dark when I got home last night, so I wasn't fully aware of what had happened. I did notice that I had more light in my house than normal, so I thought they'd cut things back as I had feared. They got rid of the hedge. And two lovely lili pili trees that made it so nice to sit on my porch and look at the greenness. Also, instead of a bank of green things filled with flowers, I now see the side of my neighbours' house - including their sensor lights. Thankfully, I let my own lili pilis get bushy and overgrown, because otherwise the yard would feel completely exposed. As I was standing in my garden this morning, commiserating with the two sunbirds who have been living in the hedge that's now gone, I found myself feeling completely bereft. It wasn't my hedge, but it was part of my garden, and now it's gone and my garden looks so sparse without it. Plus, the birds are now missing a major food source. We both sort of looked at each other as if to say "why would anybody do this?" I know that all things are impermanent. I know the hedge and trees weren't mine to keep. I know that all that I can do now is try to plant something with lots of flowers to give the birds a reason to stick around. I know I should accept it and roll with it... But right now I look at the side of a building when I used to look at a lovely green bush and feel incredibly saddened. Part of me knew this day could come - I just hoped the neighbours would realise the hedge was a benefit to them (not just me) for many reasons. But still, when I got into my car this morning and looked at the side of my neighbours' house, I realised that without that hedge, I probably wouldn't have bought my house.

I don't have great photos of what it looked like "before", but imagine a bank of flowering plants so high you couldn't see the roof of the house behind me, and then you might appreciate why the "after" photo hurts so much: