Before I bought it, my property housed two different sets of old people. When the house was built in 1955, the landscaping was undoubtedly beautiful. Unfortunately, I don't think the flora has seen the likes of a pruning sheer, chainsaw, clippers, or weed killer since. My "hedges" are 20 feet high; my trees are so overgrown they're half dead; my "shrubs" are taller than the house. Add this fact to the events of Sunday night, and I'm left pretty much hating nature right now.
I've never liked gardening. I get absolutely no pleasure, no sense of accomplishment, out of weeding or pruning. I like it when flowers come up, but have no interest in thinning beds or moving bulbs around. Nearly all of my friends have perfect gardens, filled with flowers and vegetables. They all say, "Oh, you just need to weed a little every day, it doesn't take much time. And it feels so good!" I've tried, I really have, but it just doesn't feel good to me. In my last house I waged a six-year long battle with a trumpet vine. The vine won; I moved rather than continue to deal with it.
How do you know what is weed and what is "plant" anyway? Everything's a weed, if you think about it. Our culture just decided to value day lilly more than dandelion. Based on my experience, all plants are invasive. They just grow and grow, attempting to take over the property, until a storm comes along and rams them into the house. If nature had it's way I wouldn't live here at all. Nature is a beautiful woman who knows she's beautiful so she flirts with you and then breaks your heart. Vigilance can lead to the appearance that culture is capable of holding back nature, but one can't be vigilant each and every day. Blink, and your yard is full of poison ivy. Take a nap, and you'll awaken with a trumpet vine in bed next to you.
Even so, I'm not paving over the property, at least not this week. The storm debris will be cleared out and chipped, and someone is coming to cut the hedges back to a height where I can, in the future, trim them myself. I lose each and every battle with nature, yet I continue to fight the war.
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2 comments:
Don't worry about a veggie garden. I'll have peppers and tomatoes out the ass come september.
Sweet and Hot peppers. (Some so hot you'll think your mouth will blow up like a atom bomb.)
And tomatoes red and golden.
Plus some cabbage and broccoli as well.
Farmer Spike will do the work for you.
Go with Brody on a "Walk About" ..just one trip around the house will manage the flower beds, the rest-hire someone. People think I am a good gardener, but really I just use a lot of mulch and do one walk about a day, the rest we got rid of by backhoe.
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