The war on weeds....I surrender

There’s another gardening column that runs in the Yarmouth Vanguard. If you’re looking for advice, please heed the words of Carla Allen.

If you fall into the fighting-a-losing-battle-against-your-flower-beds club, then read on.

Some people have a green thumb. Mine, I figure, is brown. Heck, it might even be red, yellow or orange. But green? Definitely not.

I hate my flower beds…or maybe they hate me. Either way, if a cement truck took a wrong turn up my driveway and accidentally dumped its load on my flower beds, I think I’d do a happy dance.

I don’t know when I declared a war on clover and slugs, but they’ve certainly declared one on me. And I can’t tell what’s a flower or what’s a weed. What I planted, what I didn’t. Frankly, I’m tired of these guessing games.

I’m also tired of pulling weeds out of the ground whose roots seem to extend all the way to the inner core of the earth.

A couple of weeks ago I got so frustrated with whatever was in my flower bed (and by the word ‘whatever’ I mean I truly had no idea what it was) that I grabbed a shovel and dug up half of what I had planted over the years.

Years ago I had opted to go with perennials instead of annuals. Less fuss, I figured, since the stuff would just grow year after year.

Well, it ain’t gonna grow no more.

Isn’t gardening supposed to be relaxing?

I was more at peace during the Stanley Cup playoffs even though at the end of Game 6 the team I was cheering for didn’t win the cup. I can take solace in the fact my friend Jody O’Donnell’s prediction didn’t pan out, he called the Red Wings in four.

Not long ago I was at a friend’s house and she asked if I had flower beds. I told her I had evil ones. She then took me on a tour of her beautifully manicured flower gardens. There was some sedum and some hosta, and some other stuff with green leaves. When we finished she asked me if I knew the names of her plants.

You’ve got to be kidding. Me, an expert on gardening? Seriously, I can’t name most plants – at least not names that I can include in this column.

Still, even I have to appreciate the will to survive.

When I went on my moment of insanity with my shovel, I apparently missed a plant. Actually, that’s not quite true. I saw it there, struggling to live, and I felt a little sorry for it. I figured I’d leave it and come back in a week to put it – and me – out of its misery.

Imagine my surprise the other night when I was standing on my deck only to see that this pitiful plant had thrived into one of the most beautiful additions to my flower bed. I couldn’t help but wonder if I had left some of the other plants in the ground, whether they would have had the same fate.

Hmmm….maybe if I don’t give up on them, they won’t give up on me.

Yeah, yeah, tell it to my hanging basket out front – the dried up brown one.