Every year spring seems to happen overnight. One day I get out of the car in the driveway and notice that all of the trees have leaves on them and everything is in full bloom. I like to think that the dog is enjoying the fresh springtime color.
Today is the first time I noticed this blue thing (this is four plants and I’ve just been told it’s a lithodora) and the red azalea in bloom. Clearly, my effort to be more observant of my surroundings is not going well. That’s the roof of Captain OCD’s sister’s house in the background. When we first moved in 23 years ago, there was a smaller, old house there. It was so dark and rainy for so long (one of those 100-year storms that seem to happen every 10 years or so) and the blackberries and overgrown hedge so thick and high along the fence that we didn’t know existed that we didn’t realize there was a house there until after we’d lived here for more than a month. Because we didn’t know there was a house there, we didn’t know that an old woman lived there. She rarely left the house, which is why she was found dead inside the house after not being seen for a few days. Our nephew, not one given toward flights of fancy, says he’s seen her in front of the bathroom and he just walks through her. Good thing they don’t look at this Web site because our niece doesn’t know about the dead lady, which is prime freak-out material. Because things have changed so much and because relatives live there now, it’s hard to imagine that we had no idea all of this was happening just a few feet from our house. This entry did not exist back then.
Several years ago I conceded to my short attention span and suggested that “we” put trees in all of the pots on the deck instead of annuals that inevitably suffer from my lack of follow-through. The result is Japanese maples that provide lots of color that changes throughout the season with zero effort on my part. There is a place about 30 miles from here that makes these aggregate pots (you’ll see their planters, outdoor benches and tables, and trash cans throughout the country in public parks and other public spaces). Every Memorial Day they have a huge sale, which is when we buy these pots that never need to be replaced.
It’s a good thing the gardening isn’t left up to me.
