Monday, May 5, 2008

Twenty-three

Ode to My Gardener

If you know me well, you know I’m not really a “plant person." I don’t garden. I, sadly, have a Black Thumb. I can kill an air plant. It’s mysterious and disturbing and it was always thus. I have, amazingly, over the past couple years, managed to grow some basil in a pot on our front porch, but I attribute it solely to Brian’s presence on the property. Had it been left alone with only me, I’m sure the basil would not only have not grown well, but actually mutated into something with legs, and run for its life.

Brian, on the other hand, loves to plant and grow things and generally does a fine job of it. So I encourage this behavior, as one of us has to do it and it cannot, obviously, be me. Over the past few days, he’s done some planting and puttering around and I thought I’d give him a shout-out here on my blog; his props, as it were. He certainly deserves them.

Blueberry plants (two varieties) – I guess he just wanted blueberries. Let me amend that. He will eventually want a blueberry cobbler.

Celosia – we bought these at the Powell Garden plant sale the other night. Brian had just wanted the red, but I grabbed the yellow, too. Told him it could be our Chiefs garden display. These are annuals, so it will be a short-lived display. I hope the organization is suitably appreciative.





Coleus – again, I went off the map a little and got Brian to color coordinate. I thought the deep magenta went well with the dark green and the pinky-white varieties.





Chenille plant – I saw this in the mailing Powell Garden sent out a couple weeks ago, thought it was unusual and pretty. This was the last one at the sale, some woman was stockpiling them and we reached in and sniped the last one. I think it pissed her off a little, too. No bogarting!!


He also planted some vibernum (viburnum?) but I didn't get a picture.

As for the rest of the yard, we’ve got quite a bit going on. Big lilac bush, that unfortunately doesn’t bloom very successfully. Just a few at the very top of the bush, and not very vibrant. Too much shade?

Some roses. Some very unsuccessful hydrangea. Some hostas. I put some mint in a couple years ago and it died very quickly. Probably shouldn’t have handled it myself. Stupid black thumb.

Oh, and the outside cat, alternately called Petie and/or Puddy. Seth generally calls him Puddy the Cat. And then jumps on him. He's very sweet, tho unneutered, so I imagine we'll have small Puddy Cat replicas before too long. There is, of course, as is the nature of things, a female stray in the general vicinity of our house as well. She's had kittens here before.

2 comments:

EE said...

I have a black thumb, too.
Your flowers are gorgeous!
Could you send your hubby over to my house...we could definitely use some color over here!

Wendy D said...

A man after my own 'green' heart. things here are in green zone. We took out all of the grazz in the front of the house on the house side of the curvy sidewalk and planted a butterfly garden in it. Andy gave me the plants for my birthday. I got about 14 different varieties that are suppose to attract butterflies and hummingbirds. We don't seem to have the trouble with hummers but butterflies I want more of.

If you guys figure out blueberry bushes - you must must must come to the farm and plant some for me. I've killed at least 6-8 over the last 2-4 years. We have to go down to the Mo. River to get our blueberries. Let me know how they do.