My neighbor let her dog use my lawn as a toilet every morning for six months and never cleaned up once — Kertati I stayed polite until she made one comment I couldn’t forget, and by the next morning I’d taught her a lesson without raising my voice once.

My yard does.

My husband Tom and I have lived on Sycamore Lane for seven years.

We bought the house when our oldest child was still a baby, which means I have spent nearly as much time growing that garden as I have raising our children.

The yard isn’t huge.

Our house and Marguerite’s sit close together, separated by a narrow driveway and a property line I know almost down to the inch because I have planted along nearly every part of it.

But what the yard lacks in size, I have made up for with time.

Attention.

And love.

The hydrangeas line the back fence.

I started with three bushes and now have nine.

Two of them I propagated myself from cuttings, which took far more patience than I expected.

They bloom blue, white, and sometimes a dusty purple that I have spent years trying to reproduce.

Every July, when they are at their best, I stand there and think they may be the most beautiful thing I have ever created with my own hands.

The front lawn belongs mostly to the children.

Tom handles the mowing.

I handle everything else.

Aerating.

Feeding.

Overseeding.

Repairing the same worn patches where the kids insist on playing over and over again.