garden

June '92

Marilyn Gardens -- in Her Own Yard!!!

   Okay, so, I went out to Pike Nurseries and bought tons of wildflower and poppie seeds for my natural habitat backyard so I can have some pretty flowers without committing to serious landscaping at this point in my workload and checking account. Naturally my favorite flowers tend to require full sun and Ravenwood is buried under very leafy oak tree limbs, so I'm testing the flowers' willingness to work with me. I asked the very helpful plant expert what would be the best fertilizer for a sort of devil-may-care approach to gardening, and she suggested the Miracle-Gro where you attach a little jar onto your hose and spray the desired area. Brilliant!
   At this point, however, the absence of the previous owner's dogs (whose running over the yard murdered any botanicals in their path) and the spring rain invited a sort of Woodstock population of weeds to converge in the back portion of the yard. I spent a few evenings attempting to pull them (it was like the episode of The Simpsons when Bart did yardwork at the old woman's house to earn extra money "I need you to pull up the weeds--you know which ones are weeds, doncha?" "All of them?" "Good boy!"). Finally we struck a compromise--they'd keep their roots, but Mom was going to hack the greens with her weed-eater, which she did before Damn Fine Coffee (my team trivia team) came over for a cook-out. I had also purchased a cheap volleyball/badminton set for additional Englishy leisure, so DFC set up the perfect location for the dirt court, so I needed to keep that area flower-free.
   The morning following the weed-hacking and court setting, I woke up early and took to the yard with gusto. I hooked up my/Dad's hose to the back water spigot and hooked up the Miracle-Gro and turned on the water and naturally nothing happened. I knew the water pressure was weak on the back spigot, so I wasn't expecting a gusher, but something more than nothing. Only slightly put off, I ran around the house and checked the front spigot which soaked my shoe in affirmation. I then hooked up my/Dad's second hose with the first one, turned on the water, ran back around to the backyard and noted that the extension allowed Miracle-Gro Water to barely reach the outside edge of the desired location without actually hitting the area and instead pooling and streaming into the court area where I don't want flowers or especially really well fertilized weeds.
   After various attempts to increase the water pressure by pressing my thumb over the stream and spraying my face, I ran back around to the basement and returned gallons later with a bucket. I filled the bucket with Miracle-Gro and, leaving behind the continuous spraying fertilizer water, began running around the yard, sloshing the bucket wherever I desired before the fertilizer ran out (I had tried to disconnect the jar from the hose between sloshings, but I wound up soaking myself trying to reconnect them). At this point I began to imagine how many neighbors must have been peeking through their curtains at the new girl. THEN I went to my parents for Fathers Day and told them about the evil back spigot that doesn't work and Mom said, "Oh, you need to turn that on from the inside. We turned it off after we cleaned your windows that weekend you were out of town. Why'd we do that, Bob?"

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