Arrrgh!!!

I'm snickering up my sleeve while reading your posting. Why? Because it so accurately reflects my attitude. The difference? I've been way bad for all my life--not just lately. I'm sorry to break it to you, Buffy, but yard work is hard work. When the enjoyment of the product isn't worth the effort required to produce it, it's time for us both to put our trowels down.

I'm very close to that point, Cop Car....it's just not fun any more. Dear Husband and I are going to have to discuss this. He spends his summers sailing, and I spend mine worrying about the house and grounds.

I found a few sign that I need to order for your garden, nothing much just a little something to always remember me by.........*wicked giggle*....I can see after this post that I need to get them to you.....one is "Don't Just Stand There Fall To Your Knees and WEED" and the second is "This Is Your Last Damn Chance To Grow" LOL Okay the last is more me.......but funny non the less!!! For the record the neglected flowers found their way into the ground finally!

i get where youre coming from too buffy. if youre in the mood its very gratifying but if not its just plain hard work.

Absolutely, Bod! When it's a gorgeous day, and you feel well, it's a joy to garden, but when it's rotten weather, and you don't feel well and you HAVE to get the gardening done because you're having a big party.....it's the pits! You hit it right on the head!

Jamie, BLESS YOU for saving those poor little flowers! *G* I think the first sign would go very nicely in the garden at the front sidewalk. I'm not one of those people who would be horrified to have a guest pull a weed!

I am so delighted everytime I see something blooming, that I just have to put on a huge grin - guess that means I'm not tired of gardening.

Actually, my end goal is to have gardens that need little work to upkeep. Maybe that's a pipe dream, but that doesn't mean I can't chase it.

Bogie, I've been going in that direction, but not fast enough. I plant things that are natural to this area, but I need to mulch a LOT more. That would cut down on some of the weeding that is so time consuming.

I know how you feel about enjoying the blooms; we do too. It's just that the effort is beginning to outweigh the enjoyment. Maybe once summer starts and I have some help from my young nephews, it will get easier, but there's a LOT to do before then.

Oh Buffy, I do understand where you are coming from with your cry of anguish. John and I went through this a few years ago when we were both working full time and wanted a nice garden as well. So basically we set ourselves a few ground rules for the garden which we still follow today. We go for plants which don't need too much looking after and basically are as tough as old boots. We only plant things in the garden that suit the soil (i.e. nothing that loves alcaline soil or needs more free-draining soil than the clay that we have) and nothing that won't survive outdoors in the winter - no digging plants up in the autumn and having to store them over the winter. We do pruning and trimming the plants but because we reduce the hard work previously mentioned that means that trimming and pruning plants becomes far less a pain and more a pleasure.

Basically we go for tough plants that suit the garden, the soil and the environment that we live in. It not only saves time and effort I think it also looks better. There is a man with a much publicised garden in Norfolk (somewhat North of us) which is full of tender exotics. It is said to look lovely but to me it just looks out of place in England.

Surely the point is to do things in the garden which are a pleasure. Not such hard work that it becomes a penance. HTH.

Reasonable ground rules, Adele. I try to be reasonable; but, often it doesn't feel like I've succeeded. You are lucky that your husband is involved.

Adele, those are good guidelines. I've gravitated toward the same strategy over the past 17 years. If a plant couldn't deal with the weather, or needed more watering to make it through the year, it was a gonner. If the deer liked the taste of it, I didn't replant that species. Like you, I have to do a little pruning, but the only thing I really have to prepare for the winter is the roses, and we're down to three of them.

I think the problem here is that there's just too much of everything, and only one of me. DH no longer helps with the grounds, and I can't do most of the really heavy work. I really envy you, that your husband works in the gardens.

I sympathise - if Mr BW didn't share the gardening equally with me, it wouldn't be fun any more. Plus, there's no way I could do the lifting or digging involved. He loves weeding too - and hates plant and seed buying, so I get to do what I like best and avoid the things I dislike.

I've had requests to clone him before ;)

Blue--Please consider having "one more" clone made, if it becomes convenient. Actually, Hunky Husband and I do not play well, together, due to our being on entirely different internal clocks and on entirely similar "I know what should be done, how it should be done, and my way is the right way!" internal attitudes. We find that his doing his thing and my doing my thing leads to something resembling matrimonial harmony.

HH's answer to a request that he help with the spading is, "I've told you to hire that done!" Which advice would be entirely sensible if it weren't for the fact that I must go slowly to give myself time to figure out what I DO want--and to change my mind countless times. (If we didn't love one another to pieces, HH and I couldn't stand one another at all--lol!)

I'm not surprised, BW....he certainly sounds like a winner. I've enjoyed his comments in your blog, and now I like him even more, knowing that he works with you in the garden.

CC..It astounds me that two such self-directed people as you and HH manage to avoid butting heads. I have a lot to learn from you. Dear Husband and I can't share the office. One of us has to leave unless HE is having a problem with the computer. Like you, we each have the appropriate way to accomplish something, and it's rare when we've settled on the same solution.

I'm getting better at letting DH do his own thing, but I'd appreciate help finding the people to replace him when it comes to house and garden maintenance.

It's too bad that we are not next-door neighbors. We could help one another!

I'd love to be your neighbor, Cop Car. I've often thought that your Elegant Friend was very fortunate to have you nearby.

Actually, I am the one who is fortunate in having Elegant Friend nearby--she has thousands of family and friends. I'm lucky to get the time with her that I do. (When I retired, EF was my only real friend away from the Little Airplane Plant! Hence, my taking up quilting--at your behest--and knitting, with which Adele has helped me)

CC...there's an e-mail that makes the rounds, where a woman is advising her newly married daughter or daughter-in-law to keep her female friends. The girl wonders why she should worry about girl friends when she has a new husband who is taking up all her time.

Those of us who have had careers, especially careers where we were one of the few women in the field made men friends. And that was fine, but not for the long run. I didn't think I was going to like having women friends, but the quilting ladies turned me around, and I'm sorry that I didn't make women friends in my twenties and early thirties.

So, true, Buffy. It wasn't that I didn't want women friends, but that I didn't do anything that threw me into contact with women to befriend. Elegant Friend was our next-door neighbor in 1963-1964, and lived close enough for us to maintain a friendship from 1968-1977, when I left town. It wasn't until we both got back to Derby (she and her husband had retired to Arkansas--until he had a massive stroke while on the operating table for lung cancer), that her son (whom I saw at the gym for 6 months before figuring out who he was) got us back together. I still "owe" the son big-time for that.

It may be unbelievable to most people, but I am shy when it comes to maintaining friendships (or family ties)--always thinking that I am intruding. Obviously, with blogging, that isn't of concern. I figure that people only bother with reading blogs when THEY want to do so!

It just occurred to me that I did have a second woman friend when I retired--but, she was living in Florida (I had grown close to her when I, too, lived in Florida; but, I left there in 1983 and she moved back to Ohio in 2004). Fortunately, although she is 13 years older than I am, she is computer literate--still gets calls on occasion to go do a job in Japan or some such--and I get emails from her nearly daily. She started her professional career as a mathematician.