Gardening

How midlife gardening differs (for me):

I'ts probably safe to say that most midlife gals are great gardeners. They probably get out there and water those flowers and plants on a regular basis and prune and pluck and do all that is neccessary to produce beautiful gardens. I know SalGal does, and that's great.

I do not, although, I do love 'manicured nature.' That's why I love to watch golf on TV because wherever they play, the grounds are mowed, the flowers are tended to, the trees are gigantic and taken care of and there are boundaries between the manicured nature and the nature beyond the foul line, which is wild, overgrown and obviously ignored. Of course, after a golf tournament, the grounds are ruined from spectators pounding the grass from a lush green to a dead brown and the divets produced by the golfers after they swing look very much like very tiny moon craters. But, the grounds keeperrs have a year to put everything back to normal before the golfers come back and do it again.

If it needs light, water or food, I'm not interested. That's why I like ivys. Those fools will grow anywhere. The cats can eat them, they don't give a shit about light really and they will continue to live even as their withered leaves beg for a drink. See, my problem is that I OVERwater. Whenever I'm thirsty, I figure they must be too. I'm too protective of them. I don't give them enough credit, I guess.

A friend of mine once asked me to take care of all of her outdoor plants and flowers while she went away (for way too long, if you ask me). I warned her. I told her that I'm not good at plant care, but she pleaded, so, okay, I said. In my zeal to be faithful and disciplined in her plants' care, I went over every single day to water them. At first they seemed to like it, so I figured that if you like something, you should have more of it, right? Wrong. When she returned, she called me over to see the damage I had done. She showed me a large barrel of what had once been happy flowers with soil to nurture them, but I had to agree with her that if you can't see the soil for the water floating on top, that's probably a situation of overkill.

SalGal actually speaks to her garden. All of her plants have names like, Steve, Elvira, Spook, Fern, Wonder Woman and the like. When I see her talking to the flowers, I worry about her. I fear for her sanity, but I pretend not to notice. If she ever goes out of town, I'm fucked because she might ask me to tend to them. She uses sprinklers, which seems like a fine idea to me, so I like to leave the sprinklers on all night long. It's just easier and I don't have to worry about moving the sprinkler like she does. There are too many mosqueetos and bugs out there and they like the water too, especially standing water, which I tend to create...ponds of standing water.

I'll probably never be asked to write for a gardeners magazine, huh?
kk

************************************************************

See, KK just doesn't understand that plants and pets like to be appreciated. Plants' vibrations are even slower than animals so they don't think much about anything but they can feel the vibrations going on in the garden and they can feel if they are appreciated. Then they give you beautiful flowers. It's easy. KK is afraid of them so they stick her and shrink in her presence. They're like horses, they can feel your fear and then they freak out and die.
Plants like it when you breath on them. It's a scientific fact that the air from your breath gives them some sort of nitrogen or hydrogen or something and they feel good about themselves. Attentiion makes them flourish so I talk to them and encourage them to produce flowers for me as I water them.
Elanor creates tiny white flowers that smell like heaven but the birds keep eating her top leaves off. So I put a St. Francis statue next to her and asked him to love the birds and ask them to stop munching on Elanor. Daisy was growing out all over the place until the racoons decided to plop down in the middle of her and now she is like an old lady whose boobs and appendages are spread out all over the place. There are often problems in the garden.
The ancient one (our mother) saw only grass from her bedroom window so I created a secret garden out her window. It's mostly in the shade but some things like it away from the sun. I planted a Bouganvilla in the corner and named him 'Boogeyman'. I put a pink flowering plant named 'Elvira' next to a hybiscus that produces giant red blossoms six inches in radius named 'Fantasia'. The I planted a two foot high elephant ear plant in the middle of everything to fill in because they get huge.
Here's the secret with elephant ears, they like it when you talk dirty to them. This works because my elephant ears are now seven feet tall and becoming giant. I just go out there and talk dirty to 'Spook', that's his name, and the next day he has a two foot long hard-on poking straight up from the middle and the next day it turns into a three foot long leaf. Try it, 'Come on now, Spook, you know you like it when I breathe on your strong, protruding stem...etc.'

So go out there and talk to your garden and don't worry if people think you are crazy. They are missing out on a whole, beautiful world of lovely smells, incredible blossoms and down and dirty sex.

Stop and smell the roses,
Sal Gal