"We need to see how the wildflowers I planted come in first."
"We can just add things and if we don't like them we can take them back out."
"We've got a lot of plants right now and we are going to get too crowded."
"But not for a long time."
"Gardens take patience. It's going to take years before it's fully established. And yeah, there will be a lot of putting things in and then taking them back out, but we need to let what we have establish first so we actually know what we have."
"But nothing is blooming."
"How about we buy some petunias and put in another color bowl in the backyard, and a few marigolds we can move around as bugs dictate and then the lupine we saw that is in a container and that way you can watch it without it spreading too much or getting anywhere near the cats. How about that?"
So the garden center trip that I thought was to buy a few ground cover plants for the front yard became a little more than that but not quite as much as it would have been if Brent were left to his own devices.
Brent's parents weren't gardeners. Which is hilarious considering his father's family owned greenhouses and Christmas tree farms. But gardens? Nope. So he's coming at everything from the perspective of us looking at houses with beautiful gardens instead of what it takes to start a garden from scratch. And we are starting a garden from scratch in terrible soil so I have zero idea what will take and what won't.
He also sees a lot of the really lovely flowers and trees and has zero idea of how much work a few of them are to keep them looking decent. What bugs will come and munch them to the ground. What pruning they will need. What temperamental bastards some of them are.
He just looks at the end results and is happy.
Me? I look at all of them and think about hours and hours spent in Mom's garden tending to rose bushes and scads of plants that each needed something different that Mom somehow knew what that was but nobody else could ever remember.
I also remember her just going crazy at times and yanking out plants that had taken over beds and crowded everything else out. Like the year she ripped out all of the nasturtiums and didn't once consider the entire family of wee people that lived under the leaves. I've always been a story weaver, even if I was the only one the stories were for, and I had a whole series around those families, I believe I cried when she pulled them all out and she could not understand why I was so upset.
Just like Brent can't understand when I veto something that needs mostly shade to thrive when we have a super sunny yard. More sun is good right? Well no, not when it needs more shade. Though sometimes I find him work arounds. Like the fuchsia that I turned into a table top plant instead of a hanging basket and put it on the front porch. Hoping as the summer heats up it will still stay shady under there. It looks good for now at least. Which is better than the two the GARDENERS planted in my side yard that looked great for a small amount of time before they burnt right up. You do this for a living, you should know these things.
(deep breath)
Another day spent gardening in my "I don't want to ever garden" yard. Hopefully in a few weeks (months) I will see some great results from the wildflowers I planted and be happy to sit outside and stare at them while Brent makes plans for the dozens of things he wants to add.
No comments:
Post a Comment