A Week at Home: The Garden (If you can call it that)

Some things look better as a whole. A beautiful vista, for example, where if you look too closely you can see signs of decay, litter, or the less pleasing parts. Others look better up close. My home yard is the latter.

It isn't that things don't grow. I can't seem to kill the hostas, for which I'm grateful, and my trusty hydrangea bush comes up, rain or shine, water or not, on the north side of the house.

It's in the narrow passage to the back yard which gets so overgrown, it is like fighting through the jungle!

The hydrangeas fight for space (and light) with the sunflowers. The sunflowers clearly win the light contest, blocking it out for the hydrangeas.

Sunflowers from the bottom up. Why do we never look beneath? 

In the front I have these happy fellows who seem to do their own thing whether I attend to them or not.

And I have to admit, their happy faces smile when I pull in the driveway. A few years ago the Garden Warrior in his weed pulling frenzy pulled out more than I wish. This year with Covid I did my own weeding and it seems they have come back in greater numbers. 

And nearby, a few coneflowers. There used to be more of these too, but you can imagine what happened!

The dill was super healthy. Again, I don't have to do a thing with this. I've found using the seedheads in floral arrangements with the hydrangeas adds a pretty, airy look to them and takes the bare minimum of time. It smells good too!

I don't know what these are. My neighbor gave me a few shortly after I moved in. Every year I pull them out because of where they are growing. Every year they come back. This year I didn't even try.

The biggest mess plant is my favorite, my sweet pea bush that I call Audrey Two after the man-eating plant in "Little Shop of Horrors." There is a reason why you see this only in close-up. 

 

See what I mean? It grows and spreads and grows some more. There's a bit of a gap in the middle where someone pulled out plants thinking they were weeds and they probably were, at least some of them. Weeds run rampant in that spot. I'd like to drown them all in weed killer of some safe sort but it would kill Audrey and that isn't an option. I love the sweet blossoms and they make the prettiest small arrangements.

Finally, meet my agapanthus. One of our book club members divided her plants and I got three. They are in the biggest, heaviest pots and need to come in for the winter in our Michigan climate. I have tried (intentionally) to kill my three for ages. (I can't seem to throw out a plant until it is totally dead, even if it looks wretched.) I even left them in the garage all winter. This year two of them rewarded me with their beautiful, solitary blooms and they are spectacular.

Now, I know if I stayed home and watered all summer, my garden (if you can call it that) would be much lovelier and well maintained. But there are trade offs and choices in life and I have made mine.

Fortunately, the sunflowers don't seem to care!