Go Fish Galvez

Can you trademark a topiary?
Copyright a creeping vine?
License a landscape?

It’s the neighbors. Again.

(Gladys Kravitz, you’re thinking? Maybe, but I fancy myself more of a closet Endora…

…who, by the way, always reminded me of my old piano teacher, Mrs. Sharp [truly, a cosmic pun]. Well into her eighties, Mrs. S persisted in dyeing her hair carrot red, wearing garish wraps, and sporting sling-back stilettos, notwithstanding—or notwithstumbling—the pitiful truth that she was blind as a bat.)

But back to my impending lawsuit. (Just kidding. I detest lawyers.)

Yesterday I was surprised to observe a big flatbed truck loaded with landscaping materials pull up in front of the house across the street. Immediately a bunch of Mexicans with shovels piled out, and the first thing they did was dig two big curbside planting holes and shove a couple of parallel fan palms into them.

Hmmm, I mused. Something about this rings familiar.

Zoom out. To the left is a shot from my humble front porch.

Notice anything here? I don’t know, like maybe…

TWO PARALLEL FAN PALMS in MY front yard?

“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” so the old saying goes. Okay, I’m flattered already. But actually, had my neighbors—or, for that matter, the previous owner of my own house—asked, I would have advised not only a different planting arrangement but a different palm species entirely.

While it’s true that Nature loves symmetry, this side-by-side configuration is more than a little forced. Much better would have been a single palm here, a clump of palms there. More relaxed, more natural.

And had I been the planter of my own front yard trees, I would have selected the more elegant and lofty Queen palm variety (Syagrus Romanzoffiana, to those in the know). More Miami.

In fact, last fall I did buy a little potted Queen palm.

Still isn’t in the ground, I’m embarrassed to admit (note to self: call in the shoveling Mexicans), and for now remains lashed to the backyard dog kennel to keep it from constantly blowing over.

Speaking of dogs, I really must get that puppy in the ground come spring.

After all, I’m sure the neighbors will be waiting and watching, to see where I plant it…

P.S. Gladys doesn’t live here anymore…I promise!