Garden Reverie

    Gardening is such a lovely word. It conjures up images of broad brimmed hats, flat bottomed wicker baskets and cute little gardening gloves with a floral motif.

How I imagine gardening to be.

    My reality seems to be a little different, less Jane Austen and more Charles Dickens.
True, I have cute little gardening gloves, but whatever motif was on them is long gone, they are usually crusty with garden grime and have a couple of holes in the finger tips. And while a wicker basket is picturesque, my trusty, rusty wheelbarrow is more practical; I've invariably taken off my hat--provided I even remembered to put it on in the first place; there is a lot of sweating and---if I'm being honest--even a little swearing.

    Elk. Moles. Soaker hoses that manage to get themselves cut in half. Some days in the garden do have more swearing than others. But all that swearing has to have a therapeutic value, right? "Better out than in" as that famous philosopher Shrek once said. And certain words seem to lend themselves to garden use, being agricultural in nature.

    This is the perfect time of year for moving your plants around, relocating them to spots better suited to their needs; more sun for this one, less moisture for that one. Sometime the need is that they go live in someone else's garden. I suggest making a list of friends with gardens and then pawning off some of your extras on them. That way, you only have to dig one hole, not two. Your friend is responsible for the replanting, you seem very generous, and now you have freed up some space in your garden. Win, win, win.

      I have a friend driving over from the east side this weekend to visit, and as luck would have it, I have a few perennials sitting around in pots, waiting for a new home.

     I'll put on clean gloves, find my hat and hide my wheelbarrow. I think she'll fall for it.

How gardening really IS.
PS only one of those brown lumps is a slug.
 The other is evidence of elk with digestive up set.
Serves him right.