Who's hogging the sun?

Ugh! I can't imagine how they deal in the northwest.

I feel accomplished today: I figured out the email link. lol. Ahhh, small steps.

Des has been invited to a friends Halloween party on Saturday...then I got to the bottom of the invitation - 'costumes required.' Uhhhhh.....
Needless to say, she's freaking out about it. I came across some 'maybe do' costume ideas. Hard to find something to whip up out of nothing. One idea was a Trailer Trash/White Trash costume. (Deja Vu) White trash bag, attach trash.
Baseball cap with leaf hanging in face: Leaf blower. lol.
Don't know what Des will think of the ideas though. Oh, yes, I do: "Ick! Mom, are you nuts?"
At this point I'm thinking of just ripping up the dead tomato plants, pinning them on her and telling her to go as a compost heap. Well, it is original, right?

Any ideas for a quickie costume?

Dug up the elephant ears, paired them up in a container with some of the impatien cuttings. I waited too long and they look thoroughly peeved with me, but hopefully they'll bounce back. I swear, if I keep this procrastination up, the Garden Gods are going to get me! I was thinking about taking the impatiens out of the pond and waterfall and bringing them in too, but to where? Besides, they're so happy in the pond. (ok, so that's my excuse for not having to deal) But they are huge and still flowering their little heads off. It seems they're the only thing I can get to grow in the pond these days that the koi will leave be. Those and chocolate mint, which they completely ignore. I guess Des and I aren't the only ones that hate chocolate!

Trailer Trash Gardener

Exactly what I feel like some days. I read through seed swap lists, but know I can't afford the postage. Maybe for something really special I want. The only time I did, I stole the stamps that were suppose to mail bill payments.

I wonder about all those people that order off the net or take an expensive trip to the local nursery and comment that they spent tons on plants and seeds because they just couldn't resist. Do they ever really end up planting or growing them? Do they appreciate them as much as those of us less fortunate? Do they stare in wonder at their beauty, or do they just take them for granted because they didn't have to scrimp and save to obtain them?

I'm not complaining, just curious. It completely caught me off guard one day when I found myself sitting quietly by the pond gazing at the flowers and suddenly welled up with tears from the sheer beauty of it all. Granted, there's nothing super special about the flowers I was looking at, but it took me 24 years to get where I am, and I appreciate every single plant or flower I have.

There's just something so special about a garden. Maybe it's more of a spiritual thing for me, or then again, it may just be PMS. What do I know?

Do the people who can afford to throw money to the wind walk by their plants every day and not even look at them? I can't walk in my front door (not even with my hands loaded with heavy groceries) without stopping at the front garden to admire something, even at this time of year when there isn't really much to admire. There's something very sad about knowing that the people who can most afford it don't appreciate it. But, I suppose that's the way it is with most things in life.

I know there are more out there like me...gardeners on social security, disability, or simply down on their luck that read through plant and seed swap posts and wish they could, just once, ask for something they want.

I've read through tons of garden journals this weekend and am thoroughly humbled. There are so many awe inspiring gardens out there. But, I still wonder - what did it take for them to get there? Did they start out on nothing and slowly build up over the years, or did they have the means to order, plop in the ground and say, "Look what I did"?

The gist of this long, pointless rant: I feel like an outsider of sorts. And I'm positive I'm not alone.

The reason for this long, pointless rant: Someone asked me why I never post pics of my flowers. I don't have a cam, can't afford one, and if I could, the money would be spent on plants and seeds instead. So, now you know.

I've decided.

I want chaos! Why should I succumb to the organized, color themed, uppity, perfectly structured ways of fellow gardeners? I won't. I won't I say!

I WILL have an unorganized, colorwheel-be-damned garden! I want the plants I want, where I want them, flowering at the time they see fit and where they suit themselves most.

It so aggravates me when someone points out that my purple salvia most definitely should NOT be planted with my blazing red bee balm. Says who? Maybe I like clashing colors. Maybe just to tick these people off a bit more I'll plant orange calendula right smack-dab in the center of that bed next year and call it the 'tie-dye' garden! Take that Miss Nose In The Air Upper-Crusty Garden Maidens!

I sigh heavily and know that come spring I'll still worry about what my fellow hands-in-the-dirt peers will say. There's just no getting around it. It's a hopeless, yearly, spring garden dilemma.

This year I will simply do as I please. I will not give in to the norm. It's boring. Who likes boring? The butterflies, hummingbirds and hummingbird moths who visit daily could care what colors I put together, and neither does mother nature. Thus - neither do I!

My purple will stay snuggled next to the red, and maybe, just maybe...I will add some orange to my chaotic cottage gardens.

Fabulous!

I tripped over some very cool beginner 'how to' gardening video today:

http://www.videojug.com/category/house-and-garden/gardening

Awesome, or what?! Ok, so I'm easily amused...

That's what I get for staying out of the garden and on the net on a rainy day. ;-)

Drizzle?

Angry gray clouds are moving across the sky today, dumping bucket upon bucket of uneeded rain. Our tiny little creek has turned into the rushing Colorado river once again, bringing back nightmarish memories of the June flood. Thankfully, they said the flooding won't be quite as bad this time.

It is a rather depressing garden day. The ravaging winds have stripped the maples bare, the ground is littered with dropped pears. Everything is yellowed and drab, preparing for it's long winter slumber. The corn across the road is brown and dead. I wish they'd cut it.

One lone holdout of color left: dianthus. They are insistant there is still time to bloom and show off their beautiful points of blaze pink.

I brought in the spike plants and transplanted them into containers I can just stick outside in the spring. They aren't happy about it (really, what did I expect?). There are a few volunteer sprouts of pink vinca emerging in the pots with the spikes. I'll baby them and just maybe they'll make it until spring.

Even in all the depressing grayness my mind turns toward planning spring plantings and WSing.
Roll on winter, roll on.