Whose Garden Is This?

Up north, I used to know all the names of the trees, plants and creatures. 

No longer.

Tiny delicate lizards flit throughout my garden and house, stopping to nod a throaty hello before moving on. Black Racer snakes sit still until seeing me, and then flit away to who knows where. Freshwater turtles greet me at the canal running in back of my house every evening, knowing I am coming with delicious food pellets. The fish and ducks like them too.

And, speaking of ducks, my extended family of Muscovy ducks wait for me to come out of the gate with cracked corn in the mornings, and waddle toward my car whenever I pull into the driveway. It is nesting season, and a few mamas congregate with their peeping broods, along with the other ducks -- even the fat, red-faced, hissing males.

I plant small things I cannot name, and they grow quickly into giants. Bird of Paradise, Banana, Oleander, Bougainvillia, and Cordyline. I plant others that become pineapples, avocados and mangoes. My Hibiscus has taken over the western fence. It is wonderfully out of control.

I thought this was my new Wild West (Wild South?). Yet the large orange and green Iguanas planting themselves squarely in sunny spots, blinking and nodding at me, say, "This is, and has always been my garden, not yours."