PEACEFUL GARDENING - My ass

Gardening is high drama baby!

SOME PEOPLE think that gardening is a relaxing hobby, where you quietly and safely putter around your yard soaking up all the peaceful beauty of nature. . . Total hogwash!

I don’t know who would say such a thing, really. Surely they were drinking too much bourbon-spiked tea.

Look, I am very sore this morning after a weekend spent hefting heavy stone blocks around my flower garden trying to get them to fit together just right to make a nice border. I was forced to get creative and make a base of paver stones to get the scheme to work. . . When I finally got them to fit together - there was this big rush of emotional satisfaction. Seriously, I felt like raising my hands and doing a touchdown dance all around the car. Wohoo!

Let me tell you, freelancing with big heavy stone blocks is not the way to go. . . It will make you appreciate having a good plan. And, it’s sort of like writing, isn’t it, only with blocks of stone, instead of words. . .trying to fit them snugly and smoothly together for the best results. Yes it is.

Gardening, can be so challenging. It is sometimes like a slide puzzle, or like a Rubik’s cube. For instance, I want to plant something in a certain spot, but it is a spot already occupied with grass and violets.. . So, I have to first dig up the grass and transplant it quickly to fill in the bare spots under my shade tree. Then, I have to transplant the violets. I have violets, in different colors, everywhere, all over the yard, because they volunteer to spring up and grow everywhere, that's why, which is fine by me. But, I don’t want to mow over them, so I have to find a place along an edge somewhere and dig them in.

Next I’ve got to dig a hole. Well, when you do that, the dirt has to go somewhere. . . I have a big plastic bowl for that. I then mix some fertilizer granules into the dirt and knead it like bread to mix it up and break it down into fine particles that will fill in around the plant’s roots. My cat, she lowers her head and looks up at me like I’m totally amazing crazy when I do this. She’ll come over and rub up against me – like "Dad – please, - get a grip on yourself." Something about doing that signals to my cat that I’ve gone mad and need affection.

And you know, when you dig a hole and shake the earth this time of year, it prompts earth worms to panic. Out they come, squirming right in the way of your next scoop. You don’t want to kill the worms, because they make good dirt, which the plants like, soooooo you have to scoop up the wriggling worms and find a place to toss them aside out of the way. Squirmy worms!

And tossing squirmy worms always gets the attention of silly birds. . . They know when I’m digging in the earth there will be worms and bugs dug up. It makes the birds totally crazy, is what it does. . . It’s like catnip for birds. . . and the anticipation just literally drives them crazy. . . They start chirping and squawking and carrying on, and watching me intently. They can spot a wriggling worm from the top of the tree, and it makes them hop up-and-down on their little branches like excited children at Christmas.

You can see how conflicted the birds are. They want it sooooo bad. They really want it bad! But the birds are too afraid to swoop down and try to get it, because it’s too close to me, and my cat. . . And my cat just loves this. She does! She knows the birds are wildly upset - but with me around - none of the birds are swooping at her. . . So, she just stays close to me - smiles, and and enjoys the hell out of it.

There are also rude surprises that you have to deal with when gardening. Yes there are. For instance maybe you want to plant something somewhere, only to find out that there is a giant wasp nest nearby, or an ant hill that you hadn’t noticed earlier . . .and you have to consider if you can really plant this there now, without disturbing the wasps or the ants (no, no you absolutely cannot!). And then there are those times when you will painstakingly dig a hole down four or five inches, only to find out that there is a tree root thicker than a baseball bat running through the exact place where you wanted to plant something. . .

Or maybe you go out to “putter” around the yard safely, and the heavens above decide to open up with rain and hail, and a nearby tree gets stuck by lightening. *BAM* Fun fun fun.

Sometimes your hands are covered in mud when a dragon fly decides that now is the perfect time to land on your head and play in your freshly washed hair. . . Or maybe a giant mosquito decides to fly over and hover, looking you in the eyes for awhile. . . Decisions, decisions. . .

See, gardening can teach you to be very flexible, and creative, and less willful, because many are the times that you are rudely forced to change your plans.

There are other dramatic surprises too. For instance, you almost never see ground spiders, because they are always lurking under leaves or something. Basically you start digging around, and you scare the hell out of them, and *poof* they take off running like little rockets away from you. They panic before you even see them. All you see is a fast-moving streak as they are scampering away. “Human Tornado! – I am getting the hell out of here right now.”

Spiders are curious though. After they get about two or three feet away they will usually stop, turn around, and have a look at you. They stare up at you menacingly is what they do. They want to know what just spun their little world into such chaos.. . And then they crouch down and spider-frown at you. . . where you can just feel the bad vibes they're sending you as they think: “I should just BITE your big ass for scaring me like that.” Sometimes they will even raise their front legs and wave them at you in tiny threatening gestures as if to say: "I'm ready now. Come at me bro!"

Oh, and sometimes I find garter snakes in the thick grass on the sunny South side of my house. My cat loves to chase those like she would chase a string. She likes to try and dig them out of the thick grass. The little snakes don’t seem to like this game though, and always refuse to cooperate.

Over on the damp shady north side of my house, I more likely will see occasional slugs and snails. My cat doesn’t like to play with those, and well, I don’t either.

The plants themselves can be a challenging adventure. Plants are finicky like people. They all like different stuff. Some plants like their feet (roots) wet all of the time, and others prefer to stay dry and just sip moisture once in a while. So, you have to learn to adapt there too. Shady forest plants do not like being on the hot sunny south side of my house. No no no. You might as well just toss them into a bonfire. And desert plants do not like the cool wet shady north side of my house; they will rot in the damp shade. Ewwwww! I have real moss growing on the north side of my house, but the south side of my house – well, it's more like a sunny blowtorch, and that moss would dry out and die almost instantly over there.

See! Gardening is high drama baby! Fie upon those who say it is a calm, peaceful, relaxing hobby. IT IS NOT. Those people who say it is, obviously don’t know what the hell they are talking about.