Bing Maps Image (c) NAVTEQ, Pictometry Bird's Eye, MDA Geospatial, and Microsoft Corporation

The other night, while Mr. Sorry was waiting around for me to quit reading garden blogs, give him my come-hither look, and say, “Let’s go to the bedroom, big boy,” he amused himself by zooming in on aerial views of our house on Bing Maps. “Look!” he said. “There are your buckets in the yard.”

I figured he was just yanking my chain because my buckets get on his nerves. I use them for weeding and transplanting and just about everything else they invented a wheelbarrow for. I have a wheelbarrow, but I prefer buckets. And, sure enough, there they were scattered around the yard—on my permanent aerial record.

Isn't the zoom detail amazing?

The screenshot above doesn’t do justice to the amazing zoom detail—especially if you know what you’re looking at. I know from the green cushion on the chaise lounge on the back patio that I must’ve been sitting in the sun that day. From a different angle, I could zoom in and see our white dog, Spike, in his favorite spot on the back porch.

The Kousa dogwoods in full bloom guarantee that the shots were taken in May. But it must’ve been a couple of years ago, based on various clues like the vehicles in the driveway and the dead pine in the back yard that fell the winter of 2008. Also, I vaguely recall helicopters accosting the neighborhood on a warm, sunny day a few years ago. At the time, I assumed it was just a drug bust.

It’s surprising that the garden’s strengths and weaknesses at ground level are also apparent from the air. The lovely dark foliage of the Diablo Ninebark and Royal Burgundy Cherry pop against the green, just as I intended. But that poor Prairiefire Crabapple standing alone on the hill with nothing to anchor it to the other beds looks silly, high or low. Damn, I swore I wasn’t going to move that thing. But now that I know it’s an aerial embarrassment, I may have to rethink that.

I may have to rethink some other things, too. Occasionally, I’m topless in that chaise lounge with the green cushion that you can zoom right in on. And one of my great pleasures in life is squatting in the yard to pee when I’m too filthy to go inside. And when Mr. Sorry waves at the planes as they fly over, I always roll my eyes like he’s a dork and say, “You know they can’t possibly see you.” I may have to rethink that, too.

2. Empty the pots. Dig a hole “right there” if a plant has been parked in the same spot for an entire season. No questions asked.

3. Banish the buckets and trash bags. Before I unearth a transplant, decide where to move it and … wait for it … dig the new hole.

4. Plan my garden projects a little more and wing them a little less. But don’t take the fun out of it.

5. End my gardening day sooner, before I collapse in a quivering heap of exhaustion and Mr. Sorry has to drag me into the house by my ankles.

6. Enjoy my favorite places in the garden more and fret about those other spots less—except the really ugly ones. Fix those.

7. Redesign the beds along the front walk and outside the kitchen window for the fifth year in a row. Who knows? Maybe I’ll get lucky.

8. Build some raised beds and grow some veggies. But do not order every seed under the sun and get in over my head … at least not the first year.

9. Accept that I will never be taller or know the names of all of my daylilies.

10. Embrace working from home this spring and summer as I continue to build my new path. It’s going to be an interesting year.

Merritt's Beauty Hydrangea

“Next in line. Can I help you ma’am?”

“Yes, I have a few hydrangeas I’d like to return.”

“That’s quite a cart full, ma’am.”

“Yeah, I’ll be back with the irises and daylilies later.”

“And the reason for return, ma’am?”

“Well, I’ve tried them in the driveway for a few years, and it turns out that I don’t like hydrangeas as much as I thought I did—especially pink ones. I really quite detest pink ones. So you can take back this Merritt’s Beauty and this Stella and this Sharona and this Pretty Maiden. And this Oregon Pride was supposed to be purple but it sure looks dark pink to me.”

“So reason for return: wrong color.”

“Well, the color of this White Moth is fine, but it’s way too big for me—definitely won’t fit in that spot under the dogwoods.”

“So reason for return: wrong size.”

“And I accidentally bought this Snow Queen thinking it was Snowflake. I swear, those oakleaf hydrangeas all look the same unless you count the sepals—and, really, who counts the sepals?”

“So reason for return: wrong variety.”

“And this Seemanii evergreen climber seemed like such a good idea, but it looks like plastic topiary.”

“So reason for return: customer changed mind … a lot. Do you have your receipt, ma’am?”

“No. But I remember exactly how much I paid. This Sargentii was on sale for $15 and I didn’t understand why no one had bought it, but now I do. It’s ugly.”

“Yes, ma’am, but you still need a receipt.”

“Well, I don’t have one. But see? That’s your nursery tag cutting into the wood there—exactly where you left it in 2004.”

“2004? Oh. I’m sorry, ma’am, but we have a 30-day return policy.”

“30 days? That’s hardly enough time for the cardboard box to disintegrate under the pots.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. It’s our policy.”

“Well, I’m a bit dismayed. After all, I’m a very good customer.”

“Yes, ma’am. We love customers like you. Have a happy New Year now. Next in line.”

The front walk collection

Hmm. The first day of winter. And my plants aren’t in the ground yet. Imagine that.

The herb garden that never was

This is the day I’ve been racing against in my mind’s eye all gardening season. That nebulous day when I told myself I’d have all of those plants in the ground. That far-off day waaaaay at the end of the calendar, that—when I bought an iris or daylily or hydrangea that I didn’t really need—I told myself, “Surely I’ll find a spot for it by winter.” Well, I didn’t quite make it. In fact, even by my sorry gardening standards, it’s stunning just how far I missed the mark.

Hydrangeas waiting patiently for another year

I knew I still had “a few” plants out of the ground, but the sheer quantity didn’t hit me until I went out to snap a quick photo of that one cluster of pots on the front walk and then discovered another cluster along the side of the house … and another near the back patio … and another on the other side of the house … and some other places, too. It was shocking to actually “see” all of those pots for the first time, even though most of them have been there for months (and, in a couple of cases, years).

Let’s take a quick stroll through my winter inventory. And these are just the ones that I hope will overwinter successfully. There are a bunch more that I’m hoping will freeze. When your eyes glaze over, feel free to skip ahead:

Cranesbill & daylilies left out in the cold

26 irises, 18 daylilies, 14 hydrangeas, 9 germanders, 8 cranesbills, 5 ajugas, 5 azaleas, 5 sedums, 5 dogwoods, 3 lobelias, 3 heleniums, 3 hebes (probably croaked), 3 nile lilies (safe in garage), 2 boxwoods, 2 bear’s breeches, 2 violets, 2 primroses, 2 agastaches, 2 hostas, 2 mints, 2 crocosmias, a baptisia (likely dead from transplant shock), a ladybell, a shrub rose, a ninebark, a smoke bush, a coral bark maple, a variegated shrub I can’t remember the name of, a penstemon, a blackberry lily, a verbascum, a rheum (that damned well better not be dead), some blue-eyed grass, some alpine lady’s mantle, some prairie mallow, a coneflower, and some marjoram, sage, rosemary, and thyme.

All I need is a partridge in a pear tree. And a landscaping crew—because that’s about 150 plants. Kind of makes you wonder if I actually have any in the ground, doesn’t it?

No wonder it’s been a relief to get away from the garden for a while, to embrace the excuse that it’s too cold and too wet to do anything “out there.” After all, it’s winter. So now what? Rest.

Apparently I have the annoying spousal habit of using Mr. Sorry’s things. But in the community property state of marital bliss, what’s wrong with slipping on his boots when the dogs have to go out to pee at 3AM? My houseslippers fit in them better.

And what’s wrong with wearing his rain jacket when mine’s wet? Or grabbing his golf glove to throw away the trap with the dead mouse? Or taking a bite from the corner of his toast? And his ice water always tastes colder and sweeter.

But I don’t touch his yard gloves. No, sir. He put his mark on them so I’d keep my hands off. When I saw that he’d scrawled a “T” on them with a Sharpie, I was a little injured. “Did you MARK your gloves?” I asked. “Yes,” he replied. “It worked on my socks and underwear in grade school.”

I have to say, that “T” has been a highly effective wife deterrent. Not once this entire gardening season have my hands slipped into those gloves. When I see that “T” it’s like he’s whispering, “Step away from the gloves.”

Now that I think about it—since we hardly ever work in the yard together—I wonder if we really have two chainsaws, two weed whackers, two pairs of loppers, two rakes, two shovels, and two hoes so I can have tools that properly fit my petite frame (as he’s been claiming all of these years), or if maybe, just maybe, he has other reasons. I’m going to be suspicious if he gets me my own riding lawnmower for Christmas.

And, with that, he can have his toast to himself for a few days while I head back to Indiana to visit Lornet and Fa. See you next week.

Mulch Scoop Number 9,999

For the most part, I have pretty good sense. Or at least that’s what I like to think. I guess sometimes it’s hard to tell.

Take that pile of mulch that’s been in the driveway since the summer of 2006 when Mr. Sorry was visiting his family back in Illinois. As soon as his wheels were headed East on the interstate, I was out in the garden with my tape measure, carefully calculating mulch quantities.

Now math has never been my strong suit, and the more I bought the cheaper it was, so I rounded up—way up, to 25 cubic yards. That’s a lot of mulch. Like a small, steaming planet. And I thought I could spread it all before he got back.

But he’s a patient, forgiving man and just shook his head and gave me “that look”—a look I’ve seen more than a few times in our 20 years together, and that I’m sure to see again the next time he comes home to find one of my projects gone awry.

Spike Explores Planet Mulch, July 2006

I’m always compelled to do these things when he’s not home—like I insist on the privacy of my own stupidity. He’s a reasonable guy and if I kept him in the loop, he’d simply offer to check my calculations or ask me to wait until he could help me haul it, or suggest having it blown in and done with in a day. You know, entirely reasonable solutions, with no winging it and dealing with the consequences. And, really, what fun is that?

But stupidity has a half-life, an associated cost that piles up over the years. So I try to mete the stupidity out over time to let the bad taste of the last incident fade before I risk something else potentially stupid.

Take those laurel shrubs along the front walk when we first bought the house. The ones I “pruned” to six inches while he was at work one Saturday. It took two years for them to recover. But we can almost laugh about that now. Almost.

I’m still living down the half-life of a few other things, though. Like the time he came home to find that I’d dug up that 20-year-old Kousa dogwood in the backyard and dragged it inch by slow inch to the front bed. And the time I nearly burned off my ponytail when I tossed that empty gas container on the brush fire and it exploded. And just last week, I hauled my new desk out to the garage and cut two inches off the legs.

Planet Mulch Declared Flat, November 2009

But I think I’m finally learning that when I’m drawn to doing a thing mostly BECAUSE he’s gone, it probably smacks of having a very, very long half-life of stupidity.

Take the dying tree that’s leaning precariously beside the house. The tree he told me in his quiet, convincing tone that we should hire someone to take down instead of doing it ourselves. I agreed. Then he left for work.

Now we’ve cut plenty of trees, so I’m not keen on paying someone to do it. And I have to admit that I did Google how to fell a tree properly, just to refresh my memory. And I did walk out to the tree and eyeball a clear fell path. And I did move the garden bench and wheelbarrow out of the way. And I did put on my gloves, earplugs, and safety glasses. But I did not fire up the chainsaw.

I felt the stupidity coming, and instead of embracing it, I decided that Mr. Sorry was correct and we should hire someone to cut the tree. Because I like to think that I have pretty good sense. And as soon as that mulch is gone, I’m ordering some more. But I’ll let him do the math.

Got a difficult message for your mom? Tell her in your blog.

I love pencils. They’re such a simple, powerful tool—kind of like a garden spade. Sharpen them up and dig in. When they get dull, it’s probably time to rest anyway.

I especially love bare wood pencils. They don’t pretend to be something they’re not. Ticonderoga blacks are pretty hard to argue with, too. But don’t get me started on pencils.

I’ve been jonesing for pencils since I was a kid. The first time I saw bare wood pencils, we were back-to-school shopping at the now-defunct Danner’s 3D. They were the coolest pencils I’d ever seen. Apparently I wasn’t into boys yet.

Naturally, without paint, they were more expensive and I could only talk Mom into buying one pack. I was going to make them last the entire school year because I sure as hell wasn’t using a gaudy yellow pencil ever again.

We got home a little late, and Mom was hustling around making supper and cleaning and doing all of those things a mom really wants to come home and do after schlepping around all day buying school supplies. And, somehow, that big bag of school supplies with my bare wood pencils accidentally got mixed in with the trash.

Now that wouldn’t have been a big deal if we’d had city trash with weekly pickup and that inherent grace period where you can retrieve the unpaid power bill from the coffee grounds. But we lived in the country and burned our trash in a big barrel out behind the barn. You see where this is going, don’t you?

So now that we all recall that incident, let’s talk daylilies—which I love nearly as much as pencils. In particular, let’s talk about that nice start of Grandma’s double daylily that Mom lovingly dug and put in a trash bag and sent to me. That daylily in a trash bag that I lovingly set on the garage step so I’d remember to plant it. That daylily in a trash bag that Mr. (very, very) Sorry did not realize was a flower. You see where this is going, don’t you?

At least I think that’s what happened. I’m pretty sure it didn’t have anything to do with those pencils 30-some years ago.

1. GREEN MOWER. Use to cut your grass to 3/4 of an inch like the dethatching instructions you found on the Web told you to do. Feel good about yourself for researching a project and doing things right for a change. Finish half the yard before the mower deck bottoms out and the blades seize up.

2. BUD LIGHT LIME. Use in two applications: 1) immediately after you realize you’ve seized up the mower blades and 2) immediately prior to telling Mr. Sorry.

3. ACETAMINOPHEN. Use for the headache you have after swilling two beers in the hot sun yet still being sober enough to realize that after the thrill of dethatching THIS weekend, NEXT weekend you get the joy of borrowing a trailer from a friend and hauling the mower in to town to be fixed and that during the ensuing couple of weeks until you have a functional mower, you get to gaze out upon your lovely lawn, half of which is snatched bald and half of which has a bad combover.

4. IBUPROFEN. Use liberally in addition to the acetaminophen 30 minutes prior to picking up the thatch rake so you don’t scream in agony from the pain in your bad shoulder as you contort your middle-aged body into the required position to effectively drag the dethatching tines through what’s left of your grass.

5. GLOVES. Use to feel like you took the proper precautions against getting a blister.

6. BAND-AIDS. Use when you get a blister despite the gloves but don’t notice until all of the painkillers wear off … so it’s a doozy.

7. CHOCOLATE CAKE. Use as needed for raking incentive. For example: “just another 6FT section, then I can have a bite of chocolate cake.” When exhausted and desperate, it is acceptable to reduce to 2FT sections and alternate chocolate cake and Bud Light Lime.

8. BLUE LEAF RAKE. Use at 4PM Sunday evening when you’re nowhere NEAR done dethatching yet and no longer give a damn.

Yes, that used to be an azalea.

Fricasseed Francee Hosta

So much for stifling in Seattle. It’s now sagged into the 60s. So slip on a sweater and come along for a crispy tour of the Sorry Garden.

You’ll notice that I’ve labeled all of the plants clearly, in case you have trouble recognizing them because they’re lush and green in your garden. Click the photos if you can stand to take a closer look. Here we go now, but please stay on the dormant-my-ass grass paths. Oh, you thought that was dirt?

Mariesii Limpcap Hydrangea

Merritt's Supremely Brittle Hydrangea

Let’s start our tour with the hardly hydrated hydrangeas, shall we? On your left, is a Mariesii Limpcap—which, frankly, I find much more fun to photograph now that it’s flaccid. And to think I’ve been watering it all of these years. On your right, is a Merritt’s Supremely Brittle. Excellent for drying.

Molded Leaf Dogwood

Dart's Gold Brown Scorched Ninebark

Now let’s go over yonder have a look-see at some of my favorite yellow variegated shrubs, such as the Molded Leaf Dogwood. And there’s my treasured Dart’s Gold Brown Scorched Ninebark. A very rare specimen. Don’t ask for it in nurseries near you. And if they have it, go elsewhere.

Smokin' Smoke Bush

Doubled-Over Doublefile Viburnum

Moseying around to the front yard, we have a Smokin’ Smoke Bush that should look shoddier if it weren’t in shade. I’ll be sure to move it this fall so it can smoke properly next year. And then there’s the lovely Doubled-Over Doublefile Viburnum, which continues to provide multi-season interest with its fascinating leaf curl and colors.

Croaking Crocosmia

Not So Jolly Bee Cranesbill

Had enough shrubs? Let’s saunter over to the side yard and enjoy some flowers. Or not. Even the old stand-bys are fading fast. Why there’s the Croaking Crocosmia in critical condition. And the Not So Jolly Bee cranesbill. Apparently the heat had the last laugh.

Well, that concludes the crispy tour of the Sorry Garden. Thank you for stopping by. And on your way out, please watch your feet near the Fricasseed Francee Hosta. It’s fragile.