Friends, I am shin-deep in pruned off rose branches and dried pampas grass clippings. My ponytail is full of shredded oak leaves and dried manure, and all my jeans are loose from excessive wear and grimy from, well, everything. Seed trays, still devoid of green sprouts, are filled with what looks like brownie batter and are also wrapped in plastic, coaxing all that sunny-window magic they can to germinate tomato seeds and other treasures. Sugar snap peas have soaked overnight and are ready to find a spot outside. Potatoes are soon to follow.
My trusty work gloves are getting as much use as my best kitchen apron, and I love it all. I am giddy from it, and the season is just getting started. My imagination for the outdoor spaces is in overdrive this year. I have more construction ideas and growing inspiration than ever before, or maybe it always feels that way?
Let’s play a game! Let’s play “Would You Rather, Garden Edition!”
Please share as many of your answers as you can. I love to hear how other gardeners think and feel!
Would You Rather…
Rehabilitate on old, overgrown garden… or start with blank earth and design your own? (I always want to rehab spaces. Driving around neighborhoods and small towns, especially abandoned properties, I cannot resist visualizing how I would change things. Rip out old shrubs, prune trees, double dig weedy flower beds, what would grow here? How could we change the eye line? Etc.)
Would You Rather…
Grow only food… or grow only ornamentals? ( I would choose food and edible flowers and herbs, but grow them in artful arrangements.)
Would You Rather…
Win a huge lottery-style budget to spend all in one gardening year… or win free, unlimited garden labor for that year? (I would choose the budget win, and spend it on long term investments like trees, perennials, and masonry supplies. Because I love working outside and Handsome does pretty much anything I cannot do, physically.)
Would You Rather…
Have access to unlimited flats of healthy annual color… or have perennials guaranteed for life? (This question pops into my head every time I visit places like Six Flags, where their annuals beds and baskets are overflowing every single day, and I just know they have greenhouses full of replacements for the inevitable losses. Still, I would choose perennials that never fail.)
Would You Rather…
Grow all the roses… or all the hydrangeas? (Hydrangeas for me, only if you force me to choose! I have several of both at the farm.)
Would You Rather…
Grow only old fashioned, stand by heirloom vegetables… or only the new, fun hybrids, bred to solve modern problems?
Would You Rather…
Have a gardening mentor… or be a gardening mentor?
Would You Rather…
Invest a windfall amount of money in statuary or other garden art… or invest it in gardening machinery? Tell me what you would buy!
Would You Rather…
Spend your November cash on paper whites and poinsettias for the holidays… or spend it on tulip bulbs for spring? (I always spend my winter gardening money on immediate gratification then regret, come spring, that I did not buy at least a few tulip bulbs. Every year I resolve to plan better. Including this year.)
Would You Rather…
Use chipped wood mulch… or well rotted organic compost?
Would You Rather…
Wear boots or golashes… or flip flops?
Would You Rather…
Work outside in the morning… or in the evening? (Tough call. I feel extremely lucky that most every day I can flit form task to task at my liesure, more or less following the sun. If I had to choose, though? Morning.)
These are fun to track in wild thought, and they can help us refine our wishes and priorities; but how wonderful that we rarely have to choose. We can grow and design and indulge our senses in myriad ways. We can do things differently every year if the mood strikes us.
What projects are on your early March calendar? Tell me everything!
“And forget not that the earth
delights to feel your are feet
and the winds long to play with your hair.”
~Khalil Gibran
XOXOXOXO
