Part of why the project is so horrible is because much of the point of it is to take space that was already too full of junk and make it capable of holding even more junk. Junk had to be move out of the way, only to be in the way of the next task, and then the next.
First off, "Annual General Meeting" is simply an incomprehensibly underwhelming name for what the event actually is. NARGS must change this, because it sounds like a meeting made up of more meetings. Nothing could be further from the truth.
My perfectly imperfect lawn is remarkably vigorous, healthy, very green, and yet has quite a bit of diversity to it. Why does it have to be any better than that?
After returning home, I went into a power tool-fired, panic-driven, spring cleanup, trying desperately to wipe ugly out of my garden but, truth is, only some of what I did made anything look even slightly better. The real cure for March is April, and the cure for April is May. Anyway, I went into a string-trimming frenzy, slashing back sedges, grasses, perennials and slinging dirt, sticks, gravel, plant labels, cigarette butts, beer cans, and whatever else all over creation anywhere I went. I consider myself kind of a performance artist when it comes to using a string trimmer. And a pretty innovative one at that. A lot of what I do with it would show up very prominently in the DO NOT section of the operating manual if manual writers had anything like the imagination I've got.
And dark and mysterious people like me hate being called “affable.” In fact, even affable people even hate being called “affable.” Which, I’m certain you knew. And why you said it. And, guess what, I forgive you. Yes, I forgive you. Because sometimes you’re a good person.
I think you can have a really great club or society that requires at least some rules of order, but if you’re going to pry young and/or young at heart people out of their busy lives to spend time at a meeting, you had better also give them a bona fide “night out.”
Boxwoods: The plant you turn to when you’re out of other desperate and have no other options. Maybe in the next life there will be another choice for deer-proof, shade tolerant, evergreen, can grow anywhere, can be shaped like anything, smells like cat pee.
It’s comprehensive, quirky, effective, funny, fun, and a worthy addition to the library of any gardener who wants to grow tropical plants. More than that, it should be required reading for idiot gardeners like me who need to be goaded into trying them.
So let's be more careful about labeling plants our grandparents grew as old-fashioned because, let's face it, Rick Danko was way the hell cooler than Taylor Swift and your grandmother was way the hell cooler than you. In fact, there's no possible way that the world's coolest millennial, or GenXer, or GenYer, or BroodXer, or whatever is even half as cool as the least cool person at Woodstock. If you exclude all the members of Sha Na Na. So don't give me no shit about Zinnias being old-fashioned. You should be so lucky to be that kind of old-fashioned.
Any weeping katsura is not only proof that God exists but one will also answer any other hard questions you might have. ‘Amazing Grace’ weeping katsura, however, does all that and also makes you rich.
One of the challenges horticulture faces in proving its importance is that it does most of its best work at the subconscious level.
Over the years, I have found that putting words into other people's mouths can be a lot of fun. And it can get one into big trouble. But I've never [...]
