Castaway Landscapes

About Castaway Landscapes

Sunrise on Big Coppitt comes up out of the Atlantic side and lays a copper stripe across the mangroves before the first car crosses on US-1. Castaway Landscapes works these narrow lots between the water and the highway, where the soil is crushed coral, the sea grape wants the whole yard, and salt has an opinion about everything. Mowing here is half mowing and half editing — cutting back what a week of wind and rain fed, pulling frond and leaf litter out of the rock beds, holding a crisp line where lawn meets gravel. The reward is small and exact: a yard tidy enough to see the water through. By afternoon the trade wind picks up and the palms clatter over ground that has already been swept clean.