8/23 Day 2
Posted: Thu Aug 23, 2007 3:02 pmEvery year, Spring comes around and that thrill of gardening hits me afresh... my mind envisions flowers of every size, color and shape... some climbing along the picket fence, others cascading down like droplets of color in a rainbow of bloom from window boxes, hybrid roses of every color attracting the eyes and envy of my neighbors. I can almost smell the floral scent in the air; I have the picture so perfectly created in my mind. I rush to the Garden Dept. and come home with the truck heavily laden with bags of topsoil, fertilizer, and an array of doomed plants ready to start a NEW garden. Yes... i said doomed. For every year, after the thrill of planting, and watering, and feeding has worn off (usually the first day the temperature hits 98 ... my garden begins to look like something out of a botanical torture chamber... you can literally hear the plants gasping and begging for water when you walk by and their dried leaves rustle and squirm crying out in pain as I quickly pass ... averting my head so as not to have to admit the deep shame and guilt I feel for the abandonment, once again, of my beloved garden. From time to time I'll go out there and try to reclaim the flowers from the weeds that have surrounded them... more often i convince myself that the weeds are actually rather attractive and throw a little fertilizer on them as if that will affirm their existence. I can never quite bring myself to prune the roses, after all when something manages to survive it seems so cruel to cut it off. This year though... this time... things are going to be different this time.
