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
Which #?
I have the same problem with getting stung. Heck, I swell when I get bit by a skeeter, and they are the official “bird” of this area!!!!
DUH on my part —— #3
Well, the sun is finally peeking out here and it is long past time for me to get my act in gear —— I need to hit the garden center and then head out to the greenhouse.
Be back a bit later.
She lucked out because I gave her as many tomatoes, cukes and zukes as she wanted.
I envy those of you test positive for compulsive gardening.......
One of my favorite places to visit is Longwood Gardens.....
The method to her madness, maybe?
Please, don’t envy us -— it’s a sickness, I tell ya, a sickness :)
It’s been years since I visited Longwood Gardens. Friends of ours went up just a couple of weeks ago and it was from a conversation on that drive that my husband and I were offered the garden clean up job we did this week and why I may be getting the gardening job where we did the clean up.
The sad thing is each time you are stung, the reaction can be worse. Seems like your body should gradually become immune to the stings.
But,.....
Good list of our habits.
Same problem here. Now I know at the first itchy feeling head into the house and take an antihistimine (don’t buy Benedryl...to expensive), within 45 minutes the itch is gone and I won’t have the swelling and itching for 2 weeks like I used to.
Try it you’ll like it.
That’s the theory behind allergy shots but in the case of insect venom, apparently it’s a lot trickier. Allergists won’t even test for bee sting allergies because the test itself can provoke a new allergy where one didn’t exist before.
I remember stuffing seed heads of zinnias into my pocket when I went to Six Flags Over Texas around the age of 11. Early onset.
It doesn’t always work for some of us.
I can be on predisone and 50 mg of Benadryl for days and I still swell, and still get breathing problems 3-4 days after the sting. The shortness of breath reaction is a delayed reaction that Benadryl doesn’t seem to help.
Most doctors say that for insect stings that that kind of dose of Benadryl is the only thing to use. Other anti-histamines just don’t cut it; they’re not strong enough.
I practically live on Benedryl (generic store brand stuff — identical, dirt cheap) because of eczema. Knock on wood it has been 20+ years since I’ve had a bee or wasp sting.
I will remember that, Benedryl dosage, if I have the misfortune of a bee or wasp sting in the future.
Of course I will be a zoned out puppy taking 50mg -— but at least I won’t itch or hurt because I won’t be feeling a thing :)
That’s 50 mg every 4-6 hours, too. For days.....
And don’t count on not feeling anything.
I wish it did......>:(
I have eczema that anti-histamines don’t touch. Hydrocortisone is the only thing that works for me.
I’m not sure what it is in foods that causes it, but I break out terribly when I eat vegetables and most fruits.
It’s been something I’ve lives with off and on for years but the last year or so it got a lot more easily triggered.
lives=lived
#15
You get nauseated trying to identify plants when driving by in a car at 55 mph.
#16
Your electric bill spikes each year in late Winter/early Spring from grow lights and heat mats and ad hoc electric heaters.
#17
You find yourself raking mulch off the ice in March.
I am also guilty of trying to grow zone 5 plants in a zone 4a micro climate. They die.
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