Brrrrr

We're heading home Tuesday. Back to our home, back to work. I always look forward to it even though it means leaving behind the warmth and and wildlife in Florida. Right now it's looking might cold up there and it definitely will not look anything like spring when we arrive.

But then, one day, there it will be. Little green points poking up through the mud, on their way. It never fails to excite me.

And it will be a mess. I didn't do much cleaning up this fall. I enjoy my garden as much in autumn as any other time of year, so I'm hesitant to clean at that time of year, or I just never know when it's time...And, of course, I'm lazy, so that's a good excuse. I will have soggy heaps of big grasses, sedums, and various piles of unidentifiable sliminess, home to who knows what sort of critters large and microscopic. Poor garden hygiene, horrors! Note to self, it is generally more pleasant to be tidying on a crisp autumn day, than on a typically nasty March morning...

Besides, once I'm back to work I'll have precious little free time for a bit, until the spring insanity is over sometime in June. I hope for a good year at work, sales have been flat the last few years - not just for us but nationally. Maybe people have gotten frustrated from losing too many plants. And most people really aren't into the labor, they just want the prettiness, guaranteed. We can make various suggestions for a "low-maintenance" garden. The customer looking for one of these is often by contrast, rather "high-maintenance"; i.e. someone who's liable to reappear next spring, complaining that two of the twenty plants that she bought died at some point during the last year, may she please have a refund? Certainly. One of my favorite customer quotes was a woman who told me that she had been gardening for years, and never lost a plant until this most recent occurrence. Miraculous! As for me, I have planted vast heavenly gardens (i.e. where all my casualties go). Obviously, this customer was all green thumbs...