Cybercafé Landscape

Plants often are mute witnesses to the history of a homestead. Trees that sprouted along property lines define previous property lines, and species that were popular at specific times suggest when people were there.

The Cybercafé land on the south side of town has such a dense row of trees along its north boundary. The most important was an apricot that was still bearing that last time blossoms survived a spring frost. It’s mate was in the back yard. This particular tree seems to have evoke strong emotions and memories for people descended from early settlers.

There also were apple trees on the land that probably date back to the time when people in this part of the valley raised fruit to sell.

At one time there were forsythia bushes around the perimeter that probably were planted in the 1950s when that shrub was particularly popular.

They and everything else was cut down when Boomerang took over, and the grounds tamed to look like a lawn. The then current popular shrubs, purple flowered Russian sages, were planted near the door in a defined bed.

What couldn’t be altered was the lay of the land. The main building was on a rise, rather than on ground leveled by flooding.

The ditches were earthen, and water seeped out of them even when it was not being diverted to the land. That water often carried seeds that fell into the Santa Cruz river somewhere on its journey from Chimayó to town.

Sweet peas sprouted along the bank and spread inland as far as the passive irrigation extended. They could be found along ditch banks farther north and to the west. The trees of heaven and Siberian elms also took that route to the south and west boundaries of the land.

Mixed with the pink sweet peas were orange daylilies. These flowers are sterile and plants only spread by the roots. The perennials were popular in the 1950s and may have been planted then, or root fragments could have come in the water. The first is more likely, and that while they may have been planted near the main building, spread toward the water where they survived benign neglect.

Older vegetation also survived along the south ditch, including some cottonwoods back by what may have been the original house and the cluster of pines at the southeast corner. They alone indicate that ditch was old.

 

Photographs were taken at various times between August 2012 and August 2018.