Learning from My Mistakes

My husband will have owned our house for two years in April. We didn't move in for several months while we were renovating, but I was determined to grow a garden. We have a row home so my gardening space consists of a steep slope of grass about twelve feet by six feet. As well as a medium sized porch and a metal balcony jutting out the back of out kitchen dubbed "The fire trap". I placed a long planter on the top of the slope and dug out two spots on either side of it for gardenia bushes. The planter was beautiful, I filled it with a rainbow of annuals that I bought at Home Depot and simply popped them in the dirt, can't get easier than that right? My small strip that lined the sidewalk was beautiful as well, for about a week. That was before the neighborhood kids discovered that trotting on my newly uncovered flower bed was a much better alternative to walking on the sidewalk. I bought a bunch of seeds and planted them without paying much attention to the growing instructions. I ended up with four foot tall Zinnias planted in the five inch strip that I has cut out of the bottom of the slope of my lawn. They looked completely ridiculous. I also had this grand idea of growing morning glories up from the planter on the lawn onto the railing of the porch. I bought floral wire and stapled it to the box and diligently trained the vines to grow up to the porch. Needless to say, it did not work. The wires kept falling off and killing the vines and even thought they grew like crazy they never flowered.

My second summer was filled with more disappointments. I eagerly planted all my seeds on the first day of spring, well before the last frost date. As I dug in the soil my next door neighbors, a pair of brothers aged three and five, (absolutely feral children who the summer before cursed out my husband and friends anytime we were outside) who were exiled to their porch for the day; inched ever so closer, watching me in amazement. Their mother is a true gem, and they spend every single day that is above freezing corralled on the porch with various other visiting children. While she holes up in the house with her friends with the radio blasting and illicit odors wafting out. I showed them an earthworm and they squealed in delight. I handed them seeds and showed them where to put them and was so proud of myself for making friends and teaching them about gardening. My efforts however had a negative effect. These cretin children now regarded my garden as theirs; and proceeded to systematically destroy everything that grew. All my seedlings were immediately shredded, and I found lilly bulbs smashed on the sidewalk. After being ratted on by the other kids on the block they admitted to doing it, but continued to decimate my garden despite my pleas. It took some shouting from my husband to finally keep them out for good, but the damage had been done.

My gardenia bush amazingly survived one of the snowiest winters in Philadelphia's history. I had bought a frost free variety from Brighter Blooms nursery that could weather our northern winters. It had doubled in size and I decided to buy another one to mirror it. It's companion arrived via FedEx and I saw trouble from the instant the truck door opened. The box was on it's side, despite the "This side up" and "live plant" warnings. I really wanted to punch the FedEx guy. It was terribly beat up and baked to a crisp, despite having several amazing smelling blooms on it. It was also a lot more puny than it's predecessor and needless to say it did not survive the stifling hot summer with it's endless heat waves. What was with the extreme weather last year? I left it's dried up corpse planted in the grown in vain hopes that it would one day spring back to life. I gave up hope when I found it laying on my lawn in the fall. I ordered a replacement a but too late to plant outside so it is currently potted up in my living room, hanging out with the succulents and my African violets.