Gardening

Well, I've tried FlyLady. I'm still getting her e-mail reminders and the inspirational e-mails and I visit her website and I'm trying. But the house is still in CHAOS - stands for Can't Have Anyone Over ... but we still do. We just do combat cleaning and know that our friends extend lots and lots of grace to us. I have great intentions and I know that routines are the best solution for me and for us, but the road there is going to be slow and circuitous. I'm not giving up, I'm just not going to be such a perfectionist about it anymore.

My garden is in the same shape ... CHAOS. Today was the perfect day to start doing something about it. Last summer the weeds gained control of my little piece of heaven. They moved in, took over and laughed in my face. And mocked me with an evil grin every time I walked through my front door, "We're here to stay ... there's more of us than there are of you. Don't even try." I believed them for a while as my poor garden struggled on ... the lily of the valley and nandina to the left, the hydrangea and yarrow, the tulips sprang alive and trumpeted their red song. One of my lilac's stood straight and tall and gave me my first three blooms this year, as if to cry, "Please don't give in to those evil weeds. We've stood against them all this time ... won't you help?"


So, today, I went out ... armed with a little hand shovel and some gardening shears ... and engaged in battle with the weeds. I have one lilac bush that my father gave me four years ago in a half-pint milk carton. This year it put out shooters of its own and stands about 24" tall. I think I might get some blooms next year. He brought it to me on Mother's Day of 2002 from one of his lilacs in Vermont. Slowly but surely it's thriving down here. The other lilac came from a friend who lives nearby. That's the one that bloomed this year. I love lilacs.


I pulled some weeds for about a half an hour. I saw some worms. I was finally able to identify which were my peony plants and which were weeds. I had some plants that have been growing in my garden for several years near my peonies that look very similar to the peonies, but are not. This year I have enough buds on my peonies to see which plants were the weeds ... and I struck them down.


I need to trim the butterfly bush ... it's getting way out of hand. But I can never remember the best time of year to do that. And I need to throw away the azaleas I never planted last year. They are going to be replaced by hydrangeas in any case.

I remembered, this afternoon, that I love digging around in the dirt. Inspecting the pebbles and worms. Listening to the hum of the bugs and the birdsong. Praying for the hurt or ill person that needed the ambulance that raced by. Wondering, is that a weed? But those dead blooms look as though I might have planted those. Hmmmm, I think I'll leave that. On the other hand, those over there are definitely weeds.


I didn't kill myself to do the whole thing today. I will do some more tomorrow and the next day and the next. Because ... I like digging around in the dirt. If I do it all in one day, what will I do for all the other days?