The star magnolia grew at the south edge of our front yard next to the Sunquist’s driveway. Our cat Tasha liked to lie under the tree, where our elderly neighbors would fuss over her as they went in and out. The tree was one of those that seem a cross between a tree and a bush—high enough to be a tree, but just barely. In the spring, you could see how it got its name. Its white blossoms looked like star beams.
Besides the lone pear, the front yard was an open space. But if our two daughters and their friends were in the front yard, I’d look first to the star magnolia. There they’d be, legs dangling from its sturdy branches. It was better than a tree house, because it constantly changed with the seasons; it could follow their imaginations.
Once or twice we would play badminton in the front yard, although tricky with the pear tree. And other than mowing it in summer, the yard was a sort of Sahara—I mean it was green, but it was something to cross to get to where you wanted to go.
The star magnolia came to me, because water situation promises to be dire for much of the west this summer and fall. We here in the Gorge have read with sympathy of the plight of the drought in the southeast of the U.S. But this time we are not exempt. So the talk of cutting back water use swelled in California, and crept only slowly into Oregon conversations. Now it’s here. The snows never did come. Mountain roads that usually are closed until mid-July have been snow-free for a couple months.
Irrigation districts are thinking anxiously about whose water they might have to cut off. Asking now for voluntary cutbacks. The watershed council is asking city dwellers to let their lawns go brown to save water for farms, orchards and fish. Driving down a Hood River street last night and I really noticed the emerald green lawns stretching to the street. Will it be hard to be the first one to go brown? Or will they put a sign in the yard proud to say—a brown lawn for farms and fish?
That’s why the star magnolia came to me, because almost everyone’s front yard is like that. They’re like an art piece to be looked at, but not used. How often do you see people spreading a picnic on their front lawn? Pull out a bench and read a book there? See kids playing tag or hide and seek in the lawn?
Go brown. It’s much more fun up in the magnolia.
