“It is far easier to start something than it is to finish it.” ~ Amelia Earhart
I asked my painter friend recently: “how do you know when it is done?” She had many answers, but the bottom line was that it rarely was. She confessed to reworking a canvas as much as a year after she put it down. The Homeward Bound Memorial Garden is like that for me – much to my fellow gardener’s chagrin. They laugh at my long list of projects and inability to leave things alone.
Sunday, we re-worked the Butterfly garden which has been conspicuously absent of Butterflies. We pulled up the large, heavy bark –
and started loading in piles of soil to raise the new transplants so they won’t sit in the winter water that floods the garden in December and January. Butterfly Bush, Monarda, Yarrow, Milkweed, Coneflower, Sage, Verbena, Lantana, and more will provide a welcome home.
While they mock me, I see them making plans of their own. With the ground work begun in the Butterfly bed, Maria had us turn attention to the herb garden. We love our pups; but not the way they relieve themselves on the herbs. So we have devised a scheme to put flowers in front and raised herbs in the rear.
Ina, meanwhile sneaks off to “contemplate” – which is almost always followed by a burst of fresh perspiration inspiration. This time, she has designs on the leftover stone. We’ll see what masterpiece she cooks up next.
The dogs? They just laugh. Unsure why anyone would want to work so hard when there are walks to be had –
apples to be retrieved…
and little boys to be played with.
“Gardeners are – let’s face it – control freaks. Who else would willingly spend his leisure hours wresting weeds out of the ground, blithely making life or death decisions about living beings, moving earth from here to there, changing the course of waterways? The more one thinks about it, the odder it seems; this compulsion to remake a little corner of the planet according to some plan or vision.” ~ Abby Adams, What is a Garden Anyway
Compulsion or not, this little corner of the planet seems a little better for the effort.
Gardens For Goldens 