Slam Planting? The term I use to describe my annual foray (or descent as I like to say) into the world of gardening.
As we have already established: I am a city girl. What you may not know is that I am a city girl who loves the great indoors. I especially love the indoors in the summer when it is hot outside. I HATE the heat. It may be that from a lifetime of being in a rink I am not used to it, regardless, the outdoors is best enjoyed in October.
It has been a sweltering couple of weeks in Toronto and I was able to finally take advantage of the cool temperatures over the last few days in order to get my (Spring) planting done.
I am fortunate in that my planting is restricted to a few pots and containers here and there and the rest of my gardening is dedicated to strategically placed pine bark chips. (I sometimes go bananas and also buy cocoa shells but only because they smell delicious and are also already dead – no additional responsibility or guilt)
My first step is to wait for the prices to drop significantly at the local plant buying place. Once that happens, usually the last week of June, I head out – armed with about 20 bucks. Once at the plant buying place I walk around aimlessly for a while looking for some kind of inspiration. I will be honest: this is usually price-driven but occasionally, and this was one of those years, if I have been in a supermarket checkout for too long looking at magazines, I might go with a “colour scheme”. I put “colour scheme” in ” marks because if you were to drive by my house it isn’t much of a scheme at all.
I was going for a English Country Garden kind of look in my 5 pots and one hanging basket, but I got distracted. I saw a rack of plants that had me at “CLEARANCE” – my kind of flowers! I bought some pink ones, some red ones and a couple that look sort of like lettuce and because I really wanted the colours to “pop” I bought some white ones too! (As an aside – I really hate the term “pop” – especially when it refers to anything decorative. I used it here because I wanted to be able to convey my total lack of gardening enthusiasm – an annoying term for an annoying pursuit I say)
Does it really matter what kind of plants I bought? Not to me. They aren’t going to be around long enough for me to become attached much less be on a first name basis.
I do my best but, in the case of gardening, it isn’t anywhere near good enough. I do have to say I have made progress though – the plants have made it to their final resting place in my front yard. There are some years I forget the flat in the back of the car or under the porch. This year, they have also made it through their first three days! I may be on a roll.
In case you thought I was a complete Neanderthal, (no offence to the Geico Insurance guys) I did leave the little tags planted beside the flowers that come with the plants. This will remind me and everyone else that I actually “planted” this year. I also left the tags French language side out – to show my continental sensibility.
How much longer til Fall?!?