I've been reading gardening books lately and they seem each more worthless than the last. And one thing they all advocate is "low-maintenance gardening".
Really?
I love doing maintenance in my garden. Otherwise I wouldn't garden at all. In fact I'd like to be doing more maintenance right now.
Today I'm angry, bored and out of sorts. So, I messed with my garden. First of all, Insanity Plant was leaning more and more, and after this afternoon's fit of wind I couldn't get it back to normal. I cut off the top, thinking it was top-heavy, but that didn't help. I tried to rotate it so I could tether it from a different angle, but it was strangely immovable. So I investigated and found it had wound itself around everything it could: the pumpkin vine on the floor, the hollyhock in the Jungle, which it broke, the poppies, the balcony railing, the old chunk of cable, everything. And it was tight, too. I had to cut off some stems of various things to get it to rotate to a better angle, and now it's upright and stable with I think one guy line left and all the rest of the work done by its own vines. I think I'm gonna change its name to Codependence Plant.
The other thing with morning glories is that they make lots of yellow leaves. This doesn't seem to bother them much, and in any case, it's fall, leaves should be turning yellow. You just pull the yellow leaves and move on, but there are always more you can pull if you're angry, bored and out of sorts. Also I've been harvesting its seeds, and that takes a lot of looking through the foliage. I feel like one monkey grooming another, but then again, gardening makes me feel like a monkey in a weird behavioural experiment anyway. And besides, I'm in a bad mood and it suits me to think angry thoughts about monkeys.
Once I got things tidied up around Insanity Plant, that gave me access to parts of the Jungle that I hadn't even seen in weeks, which needed lots of tidying too. Then I swept up the debris and tried to move the pumpkin vine out of the way, and cracked it again. The current pumpkin candidate seems in good health so far, but its vine is cracked in at least three places now, so I don't know if it's going to die or if that doesn't bother it. I relocated it out of the way of traffic, more or less, but I'm pretty much resigned to having no pumpkins again this year.
After that I picked the yellow leaves out of the Wall of Insanity, and then I looked at the geraniums.
Ha. They look like death on toast.
So I brought the planter inside and started by skimming off a layer of soil because it had mold. Then I snipped off all the broken stems, dead flowers and damaged leaves. Then it was still an ugly, tangled web of deceit and ugliness, and it seemed to have an awful lot of stems considering only three seeds sprouted at all. But I finally identified the three loci from which it was growing, and I decided to pull two of them.
That's the geranium roots. All that for five ugly purple flowers? What a waste. I kept one, so it can try again next year, but I'm totally displeased with them. Then I dug up my oriental lily. I didn't knock the dirt off its root to see what it looked like, as I'm not trying to kill it. I moved it to the geranium pot and then put the pot back outside. That's gonna be a novel experience since it's been inside and in full shade all its life. And I do mean "full" shade, as in no direct sunlight whatsoever. The stem is very sturdy, but since it's still windy out, I put it between two planters of the Wall of Insanity, where the vines can give it some shelter and support.
Then this allowed me to put the 14" planter out on the balcony, which frees up some room in my living room, where it was looking ugly anyway.
After that I was still angry, bored and out of sorts, but at least I had killed a lot of time. Then I killed some more by looking through the plant catalog and thinking about what I'm doing next year. Though that's really impossible to predict, as I don't even know when I'll ever have money.
I'm going to bed now.
Really?
I love doing maintenance in my garden. Otherwise I wouldn't garden at all. In fact I'd like to be doing more maintenance right now.
Today I'm angry, bored and out of sorts. So, I messed with my garden. First of all, Insanity Plant was leaning more and more, and after this afternoon's fit of wind I couldn't get it back to normal. I cut off the top, thinking it was top-heavy, but that didn't help. I tried to rotate it so I could tether it from a different angle, but it was strangely immovable. So I investigated and found it had wound itself around everything it could: the pumpkin vine on the floor, the hollyhock in the Jungle, which it broke, the poppies, the balcony railing, the old chunk of cable, everything. And it was tight, too. I had to cut off some stems of various things to get it to rotate to a better angle, and now it's upright and stable with I think one guy line left and all the rest of the work done by its own vines. I think I'm gonna change its name to Codependence Plant.
The other thing with morning glories is that they make lots of yellow leaves. This doesn't seem to bother them much, and in any case, it's fall, leaves should be turning yellow. You just pull the yellow leaves and move on, but there are always more you can pull if you're angry, bored and out of sorts. Also I've been harvesting its seeds, and that takes a lot of looking through the foliage. I feel like one monkey grooming another, but then again, gardening makes me feel like a monkey in a weird behavioural experiment anyway. And besides, I'm in a bad mood and it suits me to think angry thoughts about monkeys.
Once I got things tidied up around Insanity Plant, that gave me access to parts of the Jungle that I hadn't even seen in weeks, which needed lots of tidying too. Then I swept up the debris and tried to move the pumpkin vine out of the way, and cracked it again. The current pumpkin candidate seems in good health so far, but its vine is cracked in at least three places now, so I don't know if it's going to die or if that doesn't bother it. I relocated it out of the way of traffic, more or less, but I'm pretty much resigned to having no pumpkins again this year.
After that I picked the yellow leaves out of the Wall of Insanity, and then I looked at the geraniums.
Ha. They look like death on toast.
So I brought the planter inside and started by skimming off a layer of soil because it had mold. Then I snipped off all the broken stems, dead flowers and damaged leaves. Then it was still an ugly, tangled web of deceit and ugliness, and it seemed to have an awful lot of stems considering only three seeds sprouted at all. But I finally identified the three loci from which it was growing, and I decided to pull two of them.
That's the geranium roots. All that for five ugly purple flowers? What a waste. I kept one, so it can try again next year, but I'm totally displeased with them. Then I dug up my oriental lily. I didn't knock the dirt off its root to see what it looked like, as I'm not trying to kill it. I moved it to the geranium pot and then put the pot back outside. That's gonna be a novel experience since it's been inside and in full shade all its life. And I do mean "full" shade, as in no direct sunlight whatsoever. The stem is very sturdy, but since it's still windy out, I put it between two planters of the Wall of Insanity, where the vines can give it some shelter and support.
Then this allowed me to put the 14" planter out on the balcony, which frees up some room in my living room, where it was looking ugly anyway.
After that I was still angry, bored and out of sorts, but at least I had killed a lot of time. Then I killed some more by looking through the plant catalog and thinking about what I'm doing next year. Though that's really impossible to predict, as I don't even know when I'll ever have money.
I'm going to bed now.
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