Mine is gone too, but from a different disaster.

In January 2005, we had a record-breaking rain storm. The slope in my
back yard (about the height of my two-story house) decided to become
part of my lawn. The ivy and African daisies on the slope tangled in
the holly at the bottom, preventing most of the mud from going any
further. However, the ground was too unstable for me to climb and pull
weeds or tend my grape vines. And the slide ripped out the irrigation
system for what was planted on the slope.

It took more than 2 years to get a geologist and soils engineer to do
the reports required for a grading permit, to get a civil engineer to
draw the grading plans, and the county to process the permit. Only then
could I get a grading contractor to even talk to me. The grading
contractor has finally finished moving dirt and is now installing a
drainage system.

In the meantime, the dirt-moving equipment completely destroyed my rose
bed in back and took out 2-3 roses in front. The parkway (between the
sidewalk and curb) is now bare dirt. They trashed the trellis on which
my star jasmine was growing. My back lawn died because I could neither
run the sprinkler system nor reach it to hand water. My artichoke (from
which we had a few meals this spring), artemisia, sasanqua camellias,
dwarf holly, and others are all history. The sprinkler systems in back
and front have been disrupted by the digging of trenches for drains. Of
course, they had to strip all vegetation from the hill to repair it,
including two very productive grape vines. I look out my window and see
bare dirt. I WANT TO CRY!!

The description of my garden on my Web site is from before all this
started.

--
David E. Ross
Climate: California Mediterranean
Sunset Zone: 21 -- interior Santa Monica Mountains with some ocean
influence (USDA 10a, very close to Sunset Zone 19)
Gardening pages at http://www.rossde.com/garden/