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
#19. You have ever moved your car to a place in the driveway that will provide shade for your heat-stressed perennials. (High Summer)
#20. You mourn for trees along your morning commute have been trimmed (aka hacked up) by the electric company.
Guilty on all except 6, 8, and 12.
The generic antihistamine is excellent for mosquitoes and other UFO’s....But, bees and yellow jackets are another story...
Before a trip to the East, I was stung by a bee between my toes. My leg swelled up to the knee. Got on a plane the next day, gone 10 days, (very glad it was summer and could wear sandals, because my foot was soooo swollen). Anyway it took a month for the leg to return to normal. Haven’t been stung since...not looking forward to the next time.
Well, I’m out of the closet now, because I do/have done all those things.
I haven’t been on here for a week, and it is so REFRESHING to find these gardening pings.It has been a rough week. This is the first day I’ve been home in a week, and it is about 40 degrees, with lows expected in the mid 30s tonight.
Snow predicted for early next week. This globull warming is getting to me!!!
This is after a week (when I was not home, and the weather was in the 70s, and I have Dalias, other bulbs begging to be planted).
My birthday was March 30. So I went to Cincinatti to visit with a friend for my B-Day, partly because they have a huge outdoor market there where you can buy perinnials and annuals for 25 cents.
Turns out, we were early, as the garden centers had very few plants there (it turned cold as heck while we were there). There was one there, and he said April 11 he and the others would have all these.
The one there DID have Diana’s favorites (Diana, you ruined me), rare Rex begonias. He had a really rare ones for $5, and some other beautiful ones for $2. I never heard of these until Diana enlightened me.
So, I bought about $30 worth, and Diana, like I said earlier, you helped me find a new addication (shame on you).
I also went to the arbortian(sp) in Cincy, a REAL treat for me, and this and begonias made my B-Day. My friend was laughing at me, said “I’ve never seen anyone receive so much joy from a plant.”
Then I came back to Tennessee and ended up spending two days with my Mom, and planting a bunch of flowers for her.
Yesterday, my brother and me decided to go to an elderly aunt’s house and help her out (for free). She has a HUGE, two lots in town in the next county. She is struggling financially, has asthma and allergies so bad (she is in her late 70s), she can’t take care of it.
She had two huge cherry trees laying on the ground. We cut them up, and hauled them off. We cleaned her carport, mowed all the grass, raked it, built a small retaining wall to keep mud from washing onto her driveway. I repotted all the big plants in her sunroom (bought the decorative pots), and then dusted and cleaned the room.
We wanted to do more, but rain was moving in and we had to stop. Next week, we’ll pull all the weeds out of her flower beds, and plant some perinnials for her.
She kept insisting she would pay us and we REFUSED. Then she tried to buy us a pizza or hamburger and we REFUSED.
We did this because we love her (remember my stories about my British aunt), and we treasure her. We plan to do her mowing from now on. She has been paying a service for this, but is unable to afford it anymore.
For many years I have known all I had to do was pick up the telephone and call her if I needed her, and she would do anything it took to help me.
I actually remember her carrying me around on her hip when I was a toddler, and being mesmerized by her strange, foreign sounding voice. And always KNOWING she was there for me if I needed her.
So, we had a wonderful time yesterday, it meant a lot to me and my brother. We can’t wait to do it again.
My aunt is pleased, she tried to give me stuff, acted like it was taking advantage of us or something. I just hugged her and asked her “Who was always there for me, ready to help me if I needed it? Then I reminded her she was there for me when I was young and crazy, and just knowing that enriched my life, made me strive to be better.”
And my Mom — well, let’s just say she is the cock of the walk today. My aunt called Mom to tell her she did a great job raising her kids, the heathens that many predicted would never amount to anything (grammatically incorrect hillbilly talking here).
Also, gabz, gardengirl, grammy and Diana, guess which elderly lady has the most beautiful yard in her neighborhood now? My Mom.
The old biddies are following me around now, and they love their bleeding hearts. One had problems, hers didn’t come up this year, and she wants more. So, guess I’ll be digging up some bleeding hearts tomorrow. I have plenty.
Talk about diplomacy, a bleeding heart could melt the Taliban’s hearts (smile).
Guilty your honor. I had to take photos of the seed starts in the temporary green house for my First Wife today even though she just pricked them out of the germination flats into standard six pack cells.
I was at the feed store yesterday to pickup a 50# sack of crushed oyster shells to deter slugs and nails from our Dahlia plants and I noticed the traffic island out front needed weeding so I asked one of the owners to adopt it and keep it weeded. He said I told him the same thing last year...
OMG... we are dreading the next utility bill. We better have a real green house by next season!
I find myself watering the plants in my Dr’s office. I told him keeping dead and dying plants didn’t inspire great trust in his doctoring.
You are a good woman GA. If you run out of family, I have 21 acres here that could use some help.
8-)
We have all the stuff to get our garden going.... and of course Mr G had to leave town. Maybe next week!
Hey!
I resemble that remark! Esp the one about mourning mangled trees. :( I know it has to be done, but...
girlangler! Sounds like you’re having a great week! Happy bday! The liam are doing great. I transplanted some of them yest. Can’t wait to get them out.
Gabz! Congrats on the job offer! Have fun!
Red—any signs of life from our fig yet? The ones here are just leafing out.
Di—your bare root room sounds wonderful! Can I come roll around with you? LOL We don’t have such things here. Don’t need them. Got my chicks! 24 buff orpingtons. They’re so cute! Now I really have to get my guys on building a coop! Have the chicks on top of the washing machine in the mud room. The kids all decided to wash clothes the night I brought the chicks home. Poor things must have thought they’d been moved to earthquake central!
All—I am up to my eyeballs. The greenhouse is rockin. I literally can’t get one more plant in there. This week it will really start flowing out and it’s still too cold. Beautiful right now—70’s— but we’ll have one more cold snap around the full moon next week. I need to be transplanting more, but I don’t have anywhere to put it. If I can figure out how, I’ll try to post some pics. May be awhile—I’m so tired when I get home, I’m doing good to cook and eat before I fall asleep. :)
Have fun gardening, y’all!
Oh, that is just TOO perfect. That’s going on the bulletin board at work tomorrow. :)
We’re getting another 3-7 inches of SNOW Saturday night into Sunday. :(
At least I’ll have a very slow day at work on Sunday to get caught up! ‘Spring Bonus Days’ I call them; I get paid for doing my own thing and not being at the beck and call of my customers.
Not that I don’t love and cherish each and every one of them, LOL! :)
That is SO pretty!
Have you seen the documentary, ‘A Man Named Pearl?’ I’m recommending it to anyone that will listen. (Another Freeper clued me in...)
http://www.amannamedpearl.com/
“...as a gardener at a museum in a nearby town!”
(You suck!)
But...welcome to the club, Girl!
“When we go to a nursery, I am compelled to weed the plants in pots. My husband is mortified.”
Don’t be! The staff appreciates it, LOL!
Wow, just watched the trailer. That is awesome.
LOL No snow, but it rained all day yest. I did what I could in the greenhouse, transplanting and shuffling to make more room, but everything is at a standstill. I have no more room to transplant, and when this wave goes out, I have one set to replace it and then they’re just going to have to have patience!
One woman yest bought a whole flat—48 cell-of spearmint. I deliberately sowed it thick so I could thin it and make more. She set the flat on the counter and I told her, “Ma’am, that is a hellacious amount of mint. It’s going to take over your whole garden.”
“Oh, I don’t care.”
She’ll be sorry! :) Oh, well. I tried.
Post office. People look at you funny when you carry a jug of water into the PO and water their plants. The girls behind the counter just grin and wave.
Very inspiring. He is pretty much bringing that town back to economic life all by himself. :)
I do think my figs have a problem. They have yet to show any signs of life - nothing. My pear trees budded out bloomed and are full of leaves. I think the spot I chose for the figs may be to wet - not draining well! Darn!
I’ve got another one to add—
You spend more time at amusement parks oohing and ahhing over their hanging baskets and flowerbeds than anything else at the park.
LOL
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