gardenzilla

I never knew I was such a control freak in the garden! But its true, little Ms consensual living and win-win problem solving likes it My Way Damnit! where the plants are concerned.

Okay, here's the deal, what with the 40hr gig an' all, I'd been thinking that gardening might be a little much this year. Maybe I'd get one or two veggies and a couple new perrennials, but that would be it.

It so happens, though, that my charming and lovely neighbors, Mirror and Shiloh, who usually do a good bit of travelling, have decided they probably won't do so much this year due to the price of gas. So they want to learn about gardening. They're complete newbies, utterly clueless but full of Good Intentions. They also offered to buy plants.

Right On People! Lets make a Garden!

Uh huh, so here's where it gets sticky and I'm taking deep breaths chanting "its a process, its a process". We get some plants and they, my lovely neophytes Do Everything Wrong. OMG, I've made a Gigantic mistake! They Aren't Me and don't want to be me, or even have me stand over them and tell them exactly what to do. WTF is up with that? They want smiles and back patting and thank you very much, not

What the fuck are you doing? You don't put three mints in the same tiny bed where you just planted a Rose Bush!

nor

NO! Idiots! The tansy will overwhelm the lemon balm in three weeks!

nor

What part of "they compete with the tomatoes for the same nutrients" do you not understand?!?

But, dear friends, I was Good. I smiled and thanked and back patted and managed to be sincerely grateful for their help. Even when they only weeded the beds and didn't mow the paths and borders, like they said they would.

I am sincerely grateful because they have given me the one thing I really wanted - the motivation to get in the friggin' garden.

I spent Memorial Day weekend rearranging the plants.

I am not a newbie.

I may not be the greatest vegetable gardener in the world, but I've been gettin' jiggy with perrennials for Lo! these (almost) twenty years and

I know that I can dig the little darlings up and move their photosynthetic asses somewhere sensible.

Friggin' hippies probably won't remember where they planted half of it anyway.

So check it out! Ain't it purdey? I ended up making a new bed to accomodate all the extra mints - good lord, why did we need so many mints? And six lemon balms? And four, no five! different varieties of thyme? I moved one of those to a pot - the one with the fairy - since it was so tiny it was getting lost. The other potted dainty is a lemon scented geranium (these people love lemon, we have that, lemon balm, lemon thyme and... what was the other thing? oh, two lemon thymes, one varigated. Geez.

At least all those thymes gave me something to swap with the mints that were on the verge of smothering the poor rose - that bed's up at the very top, btw, and the relocated mints are in the other pic.

Now that I have more space and motivation I've been gathering free plants - from friends and the roadside and the yard by my house. That's slowly going to shade, so I'm gradually relocating all the sun loving plants and starting to think fishpond. It might take a few more years to get there, but its coming.