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Freeper Gardeners ---- How to tell you're a compulsive gardener
The Virginian-Pilot ^ | December 9, 2008 | Jo Ann M. Hofheimer

Posted on 04/03/2009 7:21:12 AM PDT by Gabz

How to tell you're a compulsive gardener

1. When stuck in traffic, you want to weed the median strip.

2. On a walk in the neighborhood, you look at the plants so much that you trip on the sidewalk.

3. You find yourself worrying about your neighbor's plants. Especially when your neighbor is doing something stupid.

4. You are tempted to adopt those straggly, mishandled plants at the garden center because you think you can give them a good home.

5. You want to collect seeds from half the vegetables you eat.

6. You find yourself pruning, pruning, pruning because it's just so much fun to be in control.

7. You wish you could prune your neighbor's plants.

8. Visits to the zoo are more about plants than animals.

9. You wish all plants, everywhere, had labels.

10. In winter, you ease garden withdrawal by reading seed catalogs like novels.

11. You pass idle time by imagining how to plant pots to get the right combinations, then replant them.

12. When passing houses, you rearrange the entrance planting for every doorway.

13. You wish you could "cultivate the weather," as Karel Capek put it, to make it behave: regulate the rain, decree the last frost, hush the wind...

14. You refuse to wear a watch in the garden, because gardening should always be the perfect opportunity to live in the moment.

Jo Ann Hofheimer is an avid gardener who lives in Virginia Beach


TOPICS: Food; Gardening; Outdoors; Weather
KEYWORDS: digging; gardening; outdoors; spring
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To: Gabz
You sound like my 10yo

*****************

Heh. :)

21 posted on 04/03/2009 7:45:07 AM PDT by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
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To: Gabz

Hidden lakes gardens is operated by Michigan State University and only charges about 2 bucks to get in. I recomend it for anyone who loves gardens and gardening.


22 posted on 04/03/2009 7:45:53 AM PDT by cripplecreek (The poor bastards have us surrounded.)
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To: Gabz

That role sounds perfect for you! GOOD LUCK!


23 posted on 04/03/2009 7:46:15 AM PDT by Travis T. OJustice (I can spell just fine, thanks, it's my typing that sucks.)
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To: cripplecreek

Sounds as awesome as your photos. Too bad Michigan is a bit too far afield for me :(


24 posted on 04/03/2009 7:49:50 AM PDT by Gabz
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To: Travis T. OJustice

Thanks. I’ll know more on Sunday.

The husband and I did the spring “clean up” of the gardens earlier this week and they were “thrilled” with the work we did. One of their board members is a botanist who wants a gardener back (he’s about 80 and not up to doing it himself anymore) and both he and the woman who hired us for the clean up are pushing for me to get the go-ahead.


25 posted on 04/03/2009 7:54:52 AM PDT by Gabz
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To: Gabz

How do you know you’re a compulsive gardener???

If you have a shed full of old milk jugs, you could be a compulsive gardener...................


26 posted on 04/03/2009 7:56:52 AM PDT by Red Badger (If Keynesian economics worked, Zimbabwe would be a superpower.......................)
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To: Red Badger

ROFL!!!!!!!!!

Not just milk jugs, but also steam table sized aluminum pans!!!


27 posted on 04/03/2009 8:01:54 AM PDT by Gabz
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To: Gabz

I’ve got a few symptoms, but so far I’m not ... Oooh, seed catalog!


28 posted on 04/03/2009 8:05:54 AM PDT by Dr.Zoidberg (Warning: Sarcasm/humor is always engaged. Failure to recognize this may lead to misunderstandings.)
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To: trisham; Gabz
I am compelled to weed the plants in pots. My husband is mortified. :)

HEY! I've done that several times. The wife just walks away and "hides", pretending not to be with me.

29 posted on 04/03/2009 8:06:32 AM PDT by Arrowhead1952 (It took almost 250 years to make the USA great and 30 days for "The Failure" BO to tear it down.)
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To: Arrowhead1952

LOL!


30 posted on 04/03/2009 8:18:23 AM PDT by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
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To: Gabz

Am I the only one compelled to leave notes on strangers doors asking them to please move the Hosta’s out of direct sun as they will be crispy critters by August?? And please mulch your trees in a bagel, not a volcano!!!

Sometimes it’s so hard! :)

I took the Master Gardener course here at the Missouri Botanical Gardens and now I make myself crazy driving down the street when I can’t remember the genera names for all the plants and trees that I see. It’s a disease, I tell ya!!!


31 posted on 04/03/2009 8:21:43 AM PDT by Clintons Are White Trash (Lynn Stewart, Helen Thomas, Rosie ODonnell, Maureen Dowd, Medea Benjamin - The Axis of Ugly)
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To: Gabz
Even better, he drives his tractor across the road and turns up my garden for me!!!

That's exactly what my neighbor did:


32 posted on 04/03/2009 8:34:28 AM PDT by Alice in Wonderland
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To: Gabz

i used to do what i call

guerilla gardening.

i’d transfer seeds and plants from one area to another.


33 posted on 04/03/2009 8:36:46 AM PDT by ken21 (the only thing we have to fear is fdr deja vu.)
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To: Gabz; girlangler

I don’t want to weed the median, however, I do want to gather armsfull of the flowers they have planted there!

I fit way too many of these, and I am not even a good gardener! In fact, I am a very *bad* gardener, if keeping things alive counts. Perhaps I am just a compulsive gardener in my mind.

((((sigh)))) I promise to try harder this year.


34 posted on 04/03/2009 8:39:54 AM PDT by Grammy
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To: Alice in Wonderland

If it weren’t for the white fence I would think you had posted a picture of my property!!!


35 posted on 04/03/2009 8:46:32 AM PDT by Gabz
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To: Gabz

Numbers 3, 9 and 13 are me.


36 posted on 04/03/2009 9:01:46 AM PDT by Red_Devil 232 (VietVet - USMC All Ready On The Right? All Ready On The Left? All Ready On The Firing Line!)
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To: ottbmare

It’s contagious. That’s me, too.


37 posted on 04/03/2009 9:04:50 AM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: Grammy

ROFL!!!!!

I wa at a friend’s house yesterday and we were talking gardening and at one point I commented “I don’t do flowers.” The look on her face was priceless, she was so confused, as we had just spent over an hour talking about soil and varmints and the good points and bad points about gardening in this area. To her gardening IS flowers, to me it’s food and seasoning, fruits, veggies, and herbs. We had a good laugh!


38 posted on 04/03/2009 9:08:01 AM PDT by Gabz
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To: Gabz
I've been digging up my weeds and am in the process of finding mulch to put around the house. I'm so sick of weeding, weeding, weeding,....

I don't have the time and when we go on vacation, I'm screwed. I never get caught up and the place looks terrible.

Not to mention, I don't like getting stung because I have a bad swelling reaction. It's never been life threatening, yet, but I don't want to take the chance.

39 posted on 04/03/2009 9:09:26 AM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: Red_Devil 232

# is rarely, if ever, a problem for me :)


40 posted on 04/03/2009 9:10:11 AM PDT by Gabz
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