Confession

I have a confession to make. Its something that not too many people know, except my husband and one or two other people. I'm not proud of it but I just can't help myself. You see, I am a murderer. I have killed more plants than I can count. Every spring it's the same. I search on-line for the plants that will do best in my yard, with its big oak tree and lots of shade. I get books from the library and read up on the proper way to fertilize and water. I talk to the experts at the nursery to find out how best to care for the plants that I decide to buy. I bring them home and lovingly put the plants in the ground or into pretty pots. I try and try. I try hard. I watch over the plants like a mother over her children. In the beginning, the plants appear to be doing well. They grow. They sprout. But then something happens. They start to look less than healthy. They wilt. They stop sprouting. By mid-summer, the plants look like they're not doing so well. It becomes obvious that I have killed again.

It isn't what I want. I want to have a backyard that is lush and green, with pretty flowers. I want to be able to sit in my yard under my shady oak tree and read or think. I want to be able to have people over to sit in my yard under my shady oak tree with a glass of wine, filling the evening air with laughter and conversation. I want to know what I'm doing, so that I won't kill anymore. I've thought of giving up and just letting the weeds have their way in the yard. But the weeds that end up growing there are not the lovely kind of weeds that all least make things look pretty in a wild sort of way. I get the kind of weeds that are dishonest. They stick up funny like a cowlick on a little boy's head. And one day I go outside to find out that they aren't green anymore, but ugly brown.

I've also thought of just concreting the entire yard and letting myself off the hook in the pretty, lush yard department. That seems so much like the coward's way out though. So every spring, I try again. Hope springs eternal, they say. So I feel hopeful again this spring. This afternoon I was out pulling out the ugly weeds and thinking of what else I could try. Is there a book I haven't looked at yet that will have the answer? Maybe a new nursery with just the right expert? Maybe this year will be different. In the back of my mind, though, lurks the feeling that I'm about to kill again.