Never ever did I aspire to be a gardener. What happened?
– We moved to beautiful Vancouver Island.
– We bought a home on a corner lot in a neighborhood where every yard could be featured in Fine Gardening Magazines.
– We purchased our home in January and never gave the yard a second thought…it was flat and looked somewhat pretty in the rain.
– We never questioned the low areas where the water pooled… or the lawns that produce mostly moss and quack grass… or the wild area in the depression filled with dead, sickly trees…

Smart husband, Ryan, decided to continue employment, realizing that our new property was going to be a challenge. He conveniently schedules himself off the Island (for business) whenever the heavy-duty gardening must be done. Who knew he was so devious? Well, let’s just say that most of April/May looked like this:
– A record year for moss. The (lawn- if you can call it that) had to be chemically treated (2X), thatched (4X), critically raked by hand (4X), treated with lime, and fertilized. And where was he? You guessed it- out of town!
– 3.5 yards of soil had to be distributed to all the shrub beds and the bald areas of the lawn. (This was accomplished after the entire yard had been weeded, which took so long that it was time to start the weeding procedure all over again!) Where was he? GONE! GONE! GONE!
– The highlight in the neighborhood was when our next door neighbor rented an aerator for his lawn and offered to aerate our lawns, as well.(Husband Ryan was on the mainland – GONE! Of course he was!) He totally missed the flocking frenzy of neighborhood men, caused by the unloading of this miracle machine. (Curiously, not one offered to pick up a rake….) And guess who’s lawn was deemed “aerator unworthy” due to lack of soil depth causing the spikes to hit rock? Apparently, “NEIGHBORS WHO AERATE LAWNS TOGETHER REMAIN GOOD NEIGHBORS FOREVER!” (Too bad GONE BOY missed the bonding experience!)

Needless to say, there hasn’t been much time this spring to write blogs! The cedar hedge still needs trimmed, (more weeding), dead plants must be replaced,(more weeding), everything is thirsty, (more weeding),and all plants need nourishing fertilizer, (more weeding), …

So GONE BOY is seriously contemplating retirement. One has to giggle at his naivety of envisioning a life of relaxation and freedom. If my vision of the future is realized,GONE BOY will be renamed, GARDEN BOY, and my new name will be GONE GIRL (gone shopping, gone hiking, gone lunching, gone writing…) Looking at the results of my gardening efforts, our neighborhood will be relieved to embrace Ryan as the RESIDENT GARDENER!

I know I’m not the only person out there who is singing the GARDENING WOES SONG. Leave a little tidbit in the comment section, for all of us to enjoy. (I’m waiting for someone to share a cougar visit in her backyard, just after WEEDING…) Come on, there have to be more of me out there!