How to successfully be unsuccessful at gardening

I think, oh, this time last year I spent the better part of one day planting an obscene number of flowers in my seven gigantic flowerbeds. I think I also mentioned somewhere that I would never do that again because A.) despite my growing up on a farm, actual farming instincts never really left its mark on me and B.) my back and knees screamed in pain for at least three days after said gardening adventure.

Although I had my doubts, last year’s promenade actually looked quite nice. I heartily patted myself on the back and repeated that I would never again plant 300 annuals; instead, I would plant perennials, thus giving me about 3 years to heal my decrepit ailing body between planting seasons. All winter long, I planned and I planned. I came up with color schemes and argued the finer points of buying a preplanned garden versus basking in the genius of a masterfully planted garden of my own devise.

If there is one thing we know about me it’s that I love to plan, but not so much to follow those well thought out plans. You know, it’s just way too restricting. Gardening plans are meant to be BROKEN because I live on the edge.

And then, financial crisis hit. Suddenly we’re discussing if pizza night would be better off being revised to “homemade pizza bagel” night rather than our usual takeout, let alone dropping a cool $200 on plants. But the planting needed to go on, on I say! The supreme narcissistic inside would not allow for a bloomless summer and so I upped the ante. This year I will be growing flowers from seed, color scheme still intact. Yes! Sometime in August I shall have flowers!* And they will be in the various shades of blue and white (let’s forget right now that I have three azaleas and two rhododendrons that are the color of bright pink old lady lipstick, it all works, I swear**).

And because this is Cape Cod we don’t get the correct temperatures for seed planting until after Memorial Day, gardening preparation was limited to the forest backyard, which looks like this but only with more weeds.

And what do we do to get rid of unsightly weeds without spending the money to put sod in the backyard? We put mulch down! Free mulch from the town dump transfer station. And we make complex, yet ingenious plans involving work and sweat equity. That is until we realize that free mulch is really more like $700 of mulch. Then we just end up with a backyard with a lot of dirt, weeds, and 27 tree stumps. But that’s ok because now you’ve decide that it’s time to take out the arbitrary faux stone grilling patio next to the deck and propane tank (we’re nothing if not safety conscious here).***

The faux stone can then be repurposed to look like sunken stone around the perimeter of the deck, which will provide double duty to remove the dead grass where your dog repeated pees. Now he will pee on stone, which coincides nicely with his favorite pastime, which happens to be peeing on stone.

To that end, you will pull up nine extraordinarily heavy pieces of square concrete and equally space them out around your deck, soon to be expertly sunken into the ground as avoid tripping yourself on random slabs of concrete laying around your yard. What are the best tools to use when trying to sink large pieces of faux stone into sod? Professional landscapers might disagree, but my tools of choice are a box cutter and a large putty knife.**** Of course if your backyard is like mine you might happen to come across a tree root or eighteen two, in which case an ax might come in handy.*****

Sooner or later, your husband, significant other, concerned neighbor, or the police will come by and gently take the ax away from you and suggest that maybe you leave the rest of the faux stones for another day. Despite temptation, you will not resist because you have a decrepit and ailing body and it has needs, namely the need to lay down. You will go inside, lay on the couch, and contemplate what it would take for HGTV to come out and fix your backyard for you.

*actual growing of flowers not guaranteed.
**actual cohesiveness also not guaranteed, resorting to a chainsaw to achieve desired affect is likely.
***we have batteries in 72% of the smoke alarms and 50% carbon monoxide detectors in this house.
****tools of choice chosen out of frugal necessity rather than free will.
*****neighbor’s pickax actually very handy, as is screaming the phrase “why won’t you die” when digging out seven thousand tree roots.