P. Garden Dead Sea Scroll-type document discovered!

Today I met with the always enthusiastic Jessica from Caltrans, who was able to dig out the irrigation boxes and discovered a broken pipe. But wait - she can fix it and she can help us out with some drip pipe and all the goodies needed for us to have water at P. Garden (goodbye 8 gallon buckets filled in the bathtub and hauled across the street!)

This, my friends, is a miracle. And Jessica is an angel.

I was all agog at her knowledge and basically stood around with drool hanging from my mouth while she dug and assessed and was useful. Even Gary came out and had a set of wrenches and a screwdriver and all sorts of helpful stuff.

Jessica told us that the head of maintenance at Caltrans had been by and he also loved the whole thing. And the sun was out and the bird were chirping. It was great.

Last but not least, Jessica also left me with a copy of the original landscaping plans - where all the junction boxes and pipes and sprinklers were, and what plants they put in - how cool! And lo - the plans were drawn up 8 days before I was born and have survived 30-something millennia! How surreal.

I think this is a sign from the universe. On the First day, Godlike Landscape Architect, whose name I cannot read, created an offramp. Days 2-6 he planted it up and installed irrigation. On the Seventh day he had a rest because it was bloody hard work. On the Eighth day he woke up with a jolt and said "Let there be a Gardener born in a far distant sheep barn. And let's give the weeds a good 30+ year head start on this game, so she stays busy. Muahahaha!"

Here's a list of what was planted originally (surely the numbers are off???)

10 Cissus antarctica (Kangaroo Treebine)
31 Boston ivy
133 Pittosporum tobira
469 Rapholepsis Indica "Springtime"
27 Ficus retusa
28 Bronze loquat
7 Pinus radiata (Monterey pine)
8 Pittosporum eugenoides (tarata)
29,700 (!) Hedera helix "Hahnii" (ivy) (yeah thanks a lot for that mister! I will be picking ivy out of that lot until the day I die... at which point they will quickly grow over me and absorb me as nutrients)
9 Platanus acerifolia (London plane tree)

So, of all those plants planted waaaay back then, one Monterey pine, a couple of Pittosporums and one loquat remains in P. Garden, with I think 5 loquats over behind the traffic barrier and oh maybe 70 bazillion ivy plants too... the planes and so on went down as far as Brannan street - don't know if they're still there but they'd be huge by now.