My long, slow learning curve

My front yard looks like hell. All it needs is a rusty car on blocks to be Redneck central. It's about 60% weeds, 30% open dirt, and okay, the remaining 10% looks okay but that's not saying much. Hard to believe, when you look at it, that I've been obsessing over it as much as I have. It certainly doesn't show it yet!

Here's one of the bright spots: the bleeding heart that Mixologist gave me before she moved to D.C. the first time.


I learned a couple things today. Like many things I learn, they probably should have been obvious. A couple weeks ago, we moved our peonies, and the poor things drooped and wilted and looked all kinds of miserable. Then I noticed that the leaves were curling. On a rhododendron, that means they need water. But it's been raining a lot, so I just figured it was transplant shock. Today I noticed the rolled leaves again, and then I noticed that the soil was completely dry. I looked up. The neighbor's maple is overhanging the peonies. Lesson: Just because a tree isn't shading a plant doesn't mean it's not blocking rain. The sun? At an angle. Rain? Straight down (usually).

The other part of that lesson is a little more universally applicable. When we moved in, my neighbors couldn't tell me what color lilac I had in front, because it hadn't bloomed in living memory. Last year we cut down the maple tree that was shading it. This is it this year:


Lesson: Like with the peonies and lilac, if something is wrong, look around. The reason (and the solution) might be really, really obvious.

I just counted the number of plants I have highlighted to buy tomorrow. It's really a good thing the plant sale doesn't always have everything they say they will, because my list? A little on the unreasonable side.