April 11th, 2019

Behold!  My new potted garden!  Evidence of spring.

Well it has felt very springy here for quite some time weather-wise but I, personally, have not felt springy until recently.  I think perhaps living in Colorado for ten years altered the advent of my own springness.  You see, in Colorado, sometimes the worst parts of winter are actually in the spring.   It's true.  Some of the most vicious winter weather I ever experienced when we lived in Colorado was after the actual calendar date of the spring equinox.  So when we lived there,  I knew better than to try to plant flowers, no matter how nice the day actually was until deep into May because the next day could be a blizzard.  And even May was no guarantee.

If you go up into the mountains in Colorado, there are actual signs to notify motorists that it can actually snow any day of the year up there and to take that under advisement as you continue travelling upward.   Which is darned thoughtful of whoever came up with that idea.  Perhaps we should have signs here telling motorists that it could be like spring most any day of the year and to be likewise advised?  (teehee)

Anyway, over the weekend I had a sudden attack of spring and so off we went to a local garden center to choose some flowers for me to stuff into pots.  I have an unusual method of choosing what flowers we will purchase each year.  I walk through the garden center and select whatever appeals to me in that moment that is relatively inexpensive.  That's it. That's my entire plan.

It ends up being different flowers, different colours, different everything each year except the actual pots that they get stuffed into.  Those remain the same.  This year I seem to have been drawn to purple and white though I do note one pink bloom in there too.  Last year It think it was mostly red and yellow and the year before I believe it was pink and white.  I just never know what is going to catch my eye.

The big mistakes that I make every year, and I do mean every single year, is that I don't pay much attention to that little tag that tells you the kind of sun and water that each requires.  It would be smart of me to do that because that way everything that requires one sort of water and/or sun could be in one pot and flowers with different sun/water requirements could be in a another one. But no, I choose them willynilly and shove them, lovingly, into pots solely based on how they look together.

Yes, I confess.  I sort them and combine them strictly with an artistic eye, not necessarily a gardeners.  I pot flowers the same way I arrange flowers in a vase, by what appeals to my personal aesthetic.   Therefore I have some very cute little dark green leaved things with polka dots that I'm not certain even blossom in the same pot as Cosmos.  And there is Alyssium potted with, well I actually don't know what it is but it's purple and tall with lots of adorable little flowers.  That's part of the other thing in my minus column.  I don't know much about Florida flowers.  I do not know the name of more than half of what is in my yard.   So even if I knew the name of the flower it wouldn't mean much to me (and odds are good I won't remember it anyway)  So with regard to the entire flower thing, I'm kind of flying blind.

I have no idea what, if anything, will live and what will gasp it's last in a few weeks.  It's all a crap shoot.  And that is one of the reasons that I choose inexpensive flowers.  If it's going to keel over and die within a month, I will be sad but I won't also feel guilty for having essentially flushed big bucks down the old WC.  

The trip to the garden center that we made this past weekend was even trickier than most because I forgot my reading glasses.  Even when I made the attempt to read that little sticker about the sort of plant and it's needs, it was just a blur to me.  And I couldn't  keep asking Tim to read the stickers to me. That's not fair or thoughtful.  So like I said, just flying by the seat of my britches.  There was a lot of  'Oh..pretty. Ooooo another pretty one.  Oh this smalls nice" on my part.  And then the price tag.  That was my selection method.

And it will either work or it won't.  Last year, and by the way last year I actually did read the little stickers, about half of the flowers made it all the way through the summer and one I even transplanted into the backyard in the fall (and it's still alive! shocker!).  The other half gasped their last in July.  Gardening is always a gamble.

I read somewhere once that farmers (and by extension gardeners) were the most optimistic people on earth.  Audrey Hepburn famously said, "To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow".  It actually makes perfect sense to me.  To plant a seed (or seedling) and then love and nurture and care for it, fully believing (not just hoping) that it will not only live but thrive and eventually produce gorgeous tomatoes or cilantro or blossoms in spite of weather, insects, accidents out of our control, tells me that this person absolutely looks on the sunny side of life. Especially if this person has previously planted things that..did not grow, or grew and died, or grew and were infested with some evil insect, or grew and was beaten to death by a rogue hail storm or...insert tragedy here. 

Anyone who is that kind of familiar with the possibilities AND STILL PLANTS ANOTHER GARDEN, well that's my kind of people.

Of course, mine is just a very tiny potted garden in my front courtyard.  But it's adorable and I love it and the butterflies love it and that's just fine with me.