Green Is the New Orange

My wife, Betty, is walking on air this afternoon.  I mean, clicking-her-heels-three-times-in-the-air happy.  Turning-somersaults-with-glee pleased.

The orange fence is down.

The orange fence first went up in mid-
September 2014 as our foundation
was being prepared.  Double-click
any photo to see an enlargement.

The fence appeared in mid-September of last year as workmen began preparing the site of our new home for its foundation.  We had gone through a two-month permitting process that ended with the issuing of an Order of Conditions, or OC by our town’s Conservation Commission.

The OC is a lengthy document that spells out what the builder, landscaper, and homeowner much do to preserve the area beyond the immediate house.  Because our home would abut wetlands, the OC was quite specific about preventing the construction process from encroaching on those wetlands.

A silt barrier

Specifically, the OC called for the placement of a 300-foot-long silt barrier to keep construction debris and landscaping materials from spilling over into land that we own, but cannot alter. The silt barrier, in turn, is a continuous tube of straw-stuffed plastic netting.  It does an excellent job of keeping Bad Stuff on one side of a line while keeping the other side of the line pristine.

To mark that silt barrier for all to see and respect, the OC requested that we put up a four-foot-high orange fence.

For those of you reading this who know Betty - and especially those of you who have seen her do her superb container gardening demonstrations – you know that she dislikes orange.

No, dislike is too mild a word to describe her feelings on the subject. ‘Hate’ is not too strong a word.  ‘Abhor’ is just about right.  We have no orange flowers in our garden.  Orange is anathema.  Why?  Betty says the color orange stops the eye in a garden.  That's the way it is.

The orange fence disappeared under
the snows of winter, only to return
with the spring melt

And so, every time we visited the construction site as the house rose from the ground, Betty would avert her eyes.  Then, winter came and, for a while, the fence was buried.  But in March it reappeared; a specter of bad taste, a blot on an otherwise beautiful piece of property.

We moved into our new home in April, but the fence remained.  Every time Betty looked out our back windows, the fence was there, shouting out its unwanted presence.  Why did it stay?  Because the OC specified that final grading for landscaping must be ‘substantially complete’ and hardscape items like our patio and driveway must be in place.

A Jack-in-the-Pulpit planted at the
woodland edge is just one of dozens
of natives we added

With the bringing in of loam in May and the construction of the patio and driveway in June, we neared our compliance goal.  We purchased dozens of native and woodland shrubs and other plants to blend our property into the woodlands beyond.  Betty tagged each plant so there was no question that it added to our standing as Stewards of the Land.

This afternoon, Leslee Willitts, our town’s Conservation Commissioner, came to pay a call.  She is a wonderful and knowledgeable lady who shares Betty’s scorched-earth policy on the subject of invasive plants. 

She and Betty walked the property for roughly half an hour, pausing to look at plants, discuss drainage and water barrels, and admire the new oxydendrum.  Interestingly, Leslee’s eyes went well beyond the silt barrier to see what was growing in the woodlands and wetlands beyond.

At the end of the tour Betty asked, as casually as she could muster, whether the orange fence could come down.

“Oh, sure,” Leslee said.  “You don’t need that now.”

Ready for the dump

To her credit, Betty waited until the Conservation Commissioner’s car was out of sight before starting to rip out the fence.  But in less than twenty minutes it was in a pile in our driveway, ready to go to the transfer station.  The workmen completing our driveway offered to take it away for us. 

There is still one step remaining before the OC is lifted.  The engineering firm that surveyed the land last year and drew up the construction plan must now do a final ‘as-built’ plan showing that we adhered to the letter of the Conservation Commission’s orders.  It will be a joy to write that final check for the report. 

Almost as much of a pleasure as ripping out that fence.