Grow If You Want To.

A Hosta Prayer Plant we resurrected.

If you know me well, you know that I hate yard work. Mowing, weeding, planting, trimming, bugs, dirt... Every bit of it. The problem is that I love beautiful gardens. I enjoy watching flowers grow. But actually doing the work? Ugh.

Fortunately, my partner loves gardens too, and enjoys working with flowers. However, her back issues prevent her from doing everything she wants to do. Over the years, we have taken on a shared philosophy of gardens: Grow if you want to.

So we do the best we can at planting. (That bleeding heart in the middle of the pachysandra? I planted it upside down.) We buy nearly dead plants on sale because we want to give them love and hope. We let everything grow as wild as it wants to, with the exception of growing ON the siding or roof. We hire a great guy to mow and trim and dig big holes. And I get my hands dirty.

The result is that we have wild blueberry bushes, apple trees, and cherry trees on our small hillside. Our pachysandra is taking over half the yard. Little violets are taking over the other half. It’s lovely.

This year, we are going to try to grow vegetables, and sunflowers. Fingers crossed. Stay tuned.

Poison Ivy

If I haven’t already mentioned, my philosophy about all things green or flowering is “grow if you want to.” Sometimes it works in my favor. For instance, I once bought a discounted plant. It was priced at 75cents because the few remaining leaves were brown and scraggly. You couldn’t even tell what it was supposed to be. It was clearly dying. I felt like it needed a home. At least its final days would be happy. That was five years ago. It’s now a thriving philodendron.

Of course, sometimes my philosophy fails me, and a plant takes advantage of my kind disposition. Like poison ivy. I suppose I should call it MY poison ivy as it’s taken up residence in three places in my yard. If it had been content to stay in one area, it could make itself comfortable. But it decided to push the envelope.

Now, this plant has me hostage. I can’t kill it. There’s nothing I know of that will destroy this menace that won’t also kill everything else—in direct opposition to how my garden grows. What to do?

I have no choice but to suit up in long sleeves, gloves, a face mask, and long pants and try to extract it with my bare hands. Wish me luck. If, by chance, you have a better idea, please share.

My Empowerment Garden

I’m not much of a gardener. In fact, I hate gardening, indoor and outdoor. The irony is that I love flowers so I do keep trying.

Over the years, it’s seemed that despite my brown thumb and hatred of dirt and bugs, some plants seem to thrive in my yard and in my house. The fuchsia below has been close to death many times but just when I’m about to call it over, it blooms. Isn’t it beautiful? It looks like a painting.

Here is a ZZPlant that my sister gave me ions ago. Originally, there was one stalk. What you see here is what is left after making two additional full pots. I’m convinced this thing cannot be killed. I call it my “little shop of horror plant”.

Here’s one more example, a Peace Lily. My partner and I found it about a decade ago in a discount rack of nearly dead flowers, for less than a buck.

My philosophy of gardening, much like the philosophy I use when it comes to my lawn, is “grow if you want to”. I’ll give the grass and flowers a good shot with water and sunlight as appropriate but in the end, it’s up to them. For my lawn, this has resulted in a mini nature reserve at the foot of my yard. For my flowers, it means some stick around and others don’t. But they are welcome to grow if they want to.