It's back, the garden fever. All day at work I'm thinking in the back of my head about what I could plant along the back side of the house. Do I have a place for another viburnum? What's a good low-growing evergreen for the area with the weird willow? Could I turn that suckering stump into a birdbath? Is 28 ferns enough? (No.)
It honestly makes me feel very manic. Fall and spring are really creative times for me, when I get very excited about EVERYTHING. I have a stack of interior design books, a pile of yardscaping guides, new music on the iPod, crude sketches everywhere . . . I catch myself bouncing in my seat when I catch wind of another plant sale. Everything feels full of possibility.
I was flipping through a plant encyclopedia at lunch one day and I felt like I would just die if I didn't get a goatsbeard (Aruncus) under the conifer in the backyard. I called Marbott's after work and found out that they don't carry it and I was so sad. I didn't want to drive all the way out to Portland Nursery during rush hour, either.
I saw this picture in this yardscape book of gas water heater flue baffles used in the garden and I. had. to. have. some.
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| Yanked from The Revolutionary Yardscape, p. 160 |
Do you know how freakishly hard it is to find those? Nary a hardware store in Portland (not even Wink's!) carries them, there weren't any at The Rebuilding Center, and the online stores that carry them (Sears, mainly) don't include the dimensions or a picture. Stymied again!
That's why it makes me feel so much better when I hear from friends who are just as antsy to get out in the mud to start planting. And then I saw this, from A Way to Garden.
"I garden because I can't help myself."
On Being a Gardener: From "And I Shall Have Some Peace There" from Margaret Roach on Vimeo.
That's exactly how I feel. I can't help myself--what am I going to do, just not garden? That's not an option. I honestly don't understand how people DON'T get excited by gardening.
In other news, I think this mystery bush might be a dwarf Canadian hemlock. Maybe? Either way, I want to move it somewhere else. That's the bedroom off the deck there and I want something that smells good so the scent will waft in through the screen door that I'll have someday. Can someone drop a hint to the boy that a screen door would be an excellent birthday present?
And one of these. WANT.
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| 'Fireworks' fountain grass |
