Thursday, May 03, 2007

How does my garden grow? Glad you asked.

Today I finally managed to have some free time, some of which I will generously spend blogging (you're welcome.)

So I went out and dug in the garden for a while. I pruned the roses that weren't actually dead, and then dug up the remains of the ones that had snuffed it. (Word to the wise: if you live in an area considered Zone 5, do not plant perennials considered cold-hardy to Zone 5 unless you actually enjoy wasting money. In which case, have fun! Also, avoid planting anything named "Carefree" anything, because that's the first thing that will cock up its toes.)

So the eleven dead rose bushes went into the yard waste bag. Later on, when I was supposed to be purchasing food for my family to eat, I filled a cart with plants, instead. And not edible ones, either, and don't go all Martha Stewart on me and assure me that yes they are, too, because I don't know about you, but flowers that look this good are probably covered in Napalm and Retsin and Soylent Green, and aren't going anywhere near my digestive tract.

I bought pansies, daffodils, and muscari (known to the less-horticulturally-pretentious as "grape hyacinths," blackbird.)

I placed these around the yard in a vain attempt to distract my neighbors' attention from my driveway (which looks like ass--big crack and all). And my roof (which is growing a fine crop of moss). And these little yellow flowers, not dandelions, but equally pesky, which are taking over the parts of the lawn not already overgrown by scylla. (Which are, if you aren't as horticulturally-pretentious as I am, those little blue flowered bulbs that should be growing in a bed, where I had them planted, but instead are popping up randomly all over the place and looking very messy indeed.)

All this is making me nostalgic for the days when I kept a few pots out on the deck, grew chives, basil, and a few roses, and basically, because I wasn't doing anything to attract pigeons or rats, keeping my neighbors reasonably happy with very little effort.

As opposed to now.

So how was your day?

4 comments:

  1. ...and it's okay that I'm not horticulturally pretentious, right?

    You know, you can lead a whore to culture but you can't make her think.

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  2. I have lived in Chicago for over 50 years. Outside of things that don't need any care whatsoever there is only one thing I still tend to carefully... Tomatoes.

    If I could surround my house with them, I would. Roses are INGRATES! All that work and they bite you anyway.

    Tomatoes are our friends.

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  3. My gardening tactics tend to be very Darwinian in nature.

    If a plant is too finicky and can't get by without being lavished with attention, or water (Seattle is very dry and drought-y in the summers), or fertilizer, or you know, tending of any kind whatsoever, then it's not going to survive long in my garden and good riddance! It is voted off the island.

    It's continually astonished me how my roses thrive despite my nearly criminal neglect. I hack 'em back one or sometimes twice a year, and that's pretty much it. And they grace me with lovely blooms pretty much from May through November, sometimes into December.

    I can't afford to replace my whole damn garden, year after year, so I usually stick to perennials. A few herbs, maybe some petunias for the front window box or containers on the front stairs, is about as far as I'll go where annuals are concerned.

    I did buy some tomato plants this year. They usually manage to mature and rot on the two days a year I happen to go out of town. I have no travel plans at this time, but now that I have the plants, that's sure to change.

    Hydrangeas have been the heartbreakers in my garden. One day, with God as my witness, I will have huge, lovely, beautiful hydrangeas, like my neighbor's.

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  4. I love grape hyacinth. It's all over my front yard and I won't let TCBIM mow yet because I want to go pick them (not that he minds NOT mowing).

    I went to Home Depot and was disgusted with their paltry selection. So now I have to trek to a real nursery and pay real nursery prices, but dammit, I don't WANT blue hydrangea, I want white. And I don't was pale lavender lilacs, I want those dark, dark purple ones. And white. And I don't want friggin' euonymous or those horrible bushes that smell like cat pee. I want syringia and maybe some forsythia. Trailing, la la la bushes that don't require trimming or much upkeep at all. And did Home Depot have any of that? No, they did not.

    And don't get me started about their tomatoes. I could have bought Big Boys. Or Big Boys. Or maybe some Big Boys. Grrrr. No herbs, no pansies (NO PANSIES?? What, I ask you, the fuck?), just lots and lots of sickly-looking impatiens. Bah.

    I did get a very nice trash barrel, though. whoop-dee-friggin'-doo.

    ReplyDelete

Gentle Readers:

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xxx, Poppy.