Spring Planting

This time of year I call Phase I of Spring Planting. It involves going out back and purveying the pots and perennials I so hopefully planted last summer. One of them, a kind of asparagus leaf, was an icky mess of limp pale greens and outright dead vegetation when I looked last week. It took quite a while to remove the dead leaves; afterwards, I was not sure if the effort had been at all worthwile. Two other pots contained simply nothing but a few twigs, so the soil was dumped into garbage bags and put out front on the appropriate day. Another container, made of natural wood, had fallen apart during the winter; it will also be dumped, soil and all. Yet another window box seemed to contain some blooming weeds; I was too disheartened at this point to look closely. A round vessel, where I had planted a flower Sheryl had liked last summer, seemed to have survived, contents and all. I think I will try to deal with that today.

The nice part about Phase I is checking out everyone else's gardens. I have seen some stunning pansies: there is a new strain of pansies with enormous beautiful faces. I have also seen some lovely parrot tulips and lush wisteria. The impatiens is the same old, same old, but there seems to be some very nice multi-colored petunias around.

The last part of Phase I will be the beginning of my trips to Tamilio's and Home Depot and my commitment to tending a backyard garden this summer. After I deal with the couple of pots that remain on the patio, I'll start shlepping containers,bags of new soil and flats of tender seedlings. With this effort comes the surmise (and prayer) that I will most likely live through yet another summer - in fact, my sixtieth.