(The following story by Daniel Rubin appeared on the Philadelphia Inquirer website on September 10.)
PHILADELPHIA — Andris Peterson’s not-so-secret garden took root 20 years ago, after he’d broken his leg while clearing the jungle of twisted giant vines that grew between his backyard and the train tracks.
As he healed, the Latvian-born tennis pro decided, “I would save, not just destroy everything. Make everything nicer.”
So he started hunting and gathering – tree stumps, metal poles, weird shapes that caught his eye, ordinary objects to display in extraordinary ways.
His first piece was a Mandala, a Hindu symbol thought to bring peace to its environs. On a flat, metal disc he arranged a ring of smooth stones, partitioned by railroad spikes like minutes on a clock.
Before long, he’d laid paths of rock and sand, created little sylvan nooks and filled them with fanciful set pieces, like cross-legged window mannequins and porcelain men sporting wigs and waistcoats.
And visitors to his backyard on Merwyn Road in Merion Station would marvel at the flying hobby horses, the archways fashioned from bed frames and seductive shapes, like a piece from a Romanian carriage he’d found at an antique store.
After a few years his neighbors started cultivating their own backyards, and what started as a way to block the rush of the R5 became a spot on the annual tours of the Narberth Garden Club.
There was only one problem.
No man’s land
The land, for the most part, doesn’t belong to Peterson or his neighbors. It belongs to Amtrak. And after a couple of decades of peaceful coexistence, Amtrak has come to stake its claim with what Peterson says is a vengeance.
About a month ago Amtrak workers sprayed the embankment with herbicide, killing hundreds of flowers, trees and bushes that the neighbors had planted.
Then last week, an eight-person crew planted its own varietals – signs that read “Warning Private Property. No trespassing.” Violators face arrest.
Amtrak spokeswoman Tracy Connell said yesterday that the garden is “a safety and security issue.” She said the spraying was to kill any vegetation that blocked signals or conductors’ visibility, and called the repurposing of old railroad spikes “pilfering, which is illegal.”
Peterson is 60, a lawyer by training. His parents were gardeners back home in Riga, and he said in crowded European capitals it was customary for people to plant along rail lines, where it was sunniest.
He doesn’t understand how for 20 years Amtrak would tolerate his beautification program, then suddenly decide it was dangerous.
If he had known Amtrak was going to treat the area, he said, he would have removed all the newly planted chrysanthemums, asters and fruit trees, all of which have been withered to lonely stalks he showed off one day this week.
A quirky paradise
Peterson – tanned, fit and angry – introduced me to a few of his neighbors. Markus Kreuzer, a political scientist at Villanova, described the garden as “this beautiful idiosyncratic little world.”
Patti Milsop, a sales executive, called Amtrak’s actions “pretty appalling and really aggressive.”
She figures she’s spent thousands of dollars and countless hours on the trackside garden. “It’s just sad,” she said, “sad they’d be so insensitive to destroy something that brought joy to so many people.”
Amtrak’s next move could make her sadder. Connell, the spokesman, said the rail agency has hired independent surveyors to determine how much of the garden is on its property, adding, “It is my understanding that it will be cleaned up, if not entirely removed.”
Which takes us back to Peterson’s first creation, the Mandala. He didn’t realize how prescient he was. Tibetan monks, after spending so much time building these delicate symbols, are known to destroy them, to dramatize the impermanence of life.