Garden Lust

You've seen the cliche of the woman sitting in a store surrounded by pairs of shoes, buying several. Compulsive clothing shopping, jewelry accummulation, all those shop-aholic jokes. Well, I can forego department stores, no sweat. But tonight as I circled the garden department at Lowes I really had to force myself to stick to the list: tomatoes, basil, petunias, and pansies.

Look at those tulips!! And the daffodils!! Hanging pots of geraniums--which just wither and die here on my patio in the heat. Great big bowls of snapdragons, pansies and sweet williams---I have two big bowls already filled with succulents and herbs that can survive the summer. I don't have flower beds to fill with daisies and poppies. I don't have a pathway in which to plant alyssum so it will grow up between the paving stones. I don't live in San Diego where the bougainvillia can creep up over a trellis and live all winter.

If I go to a nursery for my bedding plants it's even worse. They have ten times the selection and they have little "idea garden spots" set up all over. You go in there for bag of fertilizer and get lost wandering through the fountain section thinking how wonderful some trickling water into a stone lined pool would sound in the evening. It could have big tufts of pampas grass growing beside a large boulder...and...and...

NO---just pick up your six tomato plants, two basil plants, the seed packs of beets, peas and pole beans and go quickly to the check out stand. You do not have the yard space for these other awesome effects. Besides, the focus of the landscape efforts and money this year must be on the front yard. It looks like an abandoned vacant lot out there under the palm trees. But, maybe the trickling "pond" (recirculating with a tiny pump) could be part of the remodel...hmmm. Let's go home and give it a look.