Thursday, May 22, 2008

Spring and all

Is that the name of the poem that WCW begins with talking about how the weeds on the way to the contagious hospital are starting to grow again? Because, I think that's kind of the day I'm having, where really the best thing you can see is that the weeds are coming back! What luck!

A couple weeks ago I picked up a couple seed packets while we were at Target, thinking it was a good start on my big plans for the garden. Well, it looks like that might have been it for the garden budget this year. I'd wanted to try out that newspaper-mulch-compost cover idea on one big weed-infested flowerbed, but I think instead I'd better start hoping for some pretty weeds.

A while ago I managed to clear a part of one of the many weedy, overgrown flowerbeds out back and I put in delphiniums, cosmos, and marigolds. The cosmos are coming up now. The marigold seeds were two years old; they were, I think, the tenth or eleventh generation harvest from seeds originally bought even before we bought this house. They do not seem to be coming up. I am sad about this. Also about the rosebush, a gift at Cora's birth, that seems to be well and truly dead. I planted batchelor button seeds around it, just in case it changes its mind.

Inside this little patch, separated from its weedier neighbors by a little wire fence, I also placed the little bunny statue my grandma gave me. Everytime she goes out back Cora wants to water "the bunny garden" and she was crouch next to the fence and pet and talk to the bunny. She likes to say bye-bye to the bunny when we leave by the back, too.

Today out front I put in the straw flowers, standard zinnias, and some miniature zinnias. I noticed that only one of the two coral bells is coming back, ditto for the Jacob's ladder, all the creeping phlox seem less robust than usual, the lavendar is making a valiant effort, and the stringy whatever-it-is flower is also trying very hard to look lively. There are some long patches of bare ground lining the walkway to the house, and I don't think the other packet of delphinium is going to work there.

Then I went and looked at the side yard. Wow. Two years of basic neglect and I'm actually kind of surprised to see anything at all growing over there. I can't tell yet if the clematis has survived or been replaced by a look-alike weed. The anemones are halfway through their blooming. The sedum is going bonkers. The striped creeping phlox is doing its best, as is the ground cover carnation-like flower.

Today, I think, is my transition day. Going from the idea that I will have beautiful, or at least totally mulched, gardens this year, to the reality that I will have a few really nice looking spots and a lot of spots I am totally dissatisfied with. And, I think once this transition is complete, I'll be able to come to terms with that dissatisfaction in a way that doesn't make me feel like I might run into a contagious hospital at any moment.

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