Define Help

 

I've been so busy out there.  Everywhere I look, everywhere I turn, there's weeding, tidying, deadheading, transplanting to be done.  Today, I enjoyed a sunny, cool, full day in my garden.  I was out there from morning till evening and it really was lovely.  Nevertheless, I am trying to meet a deadline.  Easter is so early this year.  For the first time ever, our beds won't even be mulched in time for our celebration.  We are still planting!

 

There's another reason we are behind.  This year, we are doing everything ourselves.  I am very uncomfortable hiring help for what is, to me, a personal hobby, interest, passion.  I don't trust strangers stomping in my flower beds.  However, once or twice a year we do hire help; it is often at this time of year precisely to help us with the mulching.  But hired help, even hired landscaping companies, do things their own way.  Last year, the men mulched over all of the stone paths in our beds.  We are still unearthing them a year later.  Also, unfailingly, they take out plants I have bought and planted.  One year it was my coneflowers and Turk's Cap. Last year, a landscaping crew pulled twenty or so bluebells.  They didn't look too great, it's true, but that was because they were just returning from their long winter's naps.  I couldn't believe it!

 

At the same time, the crews do work hard, especially in our hot summers.  I'm not mad (anymore).  But I prefer, as does my husband, that we take care of our own gardens.  How protective is too protective?  I can't quite decide.  Is waiting until desperation strikes unreasonable?  Personally, I don't think so.

 

Today, I finished planting for Easter.  I added dianthus, coneflowers, coreopsis, cosmos, a few daylilies, some impatiens, one cute little spiderwort, gomphrena, just to name a few.  I also worked on our little vegetable patch.  I hope to share photos of our tidy, planted, unmulched beds in my next post.  For now, this weary gardener shall leave you with a sign of Spring.