airhead


Every group has to have at least one airhead and ,in this group of
dedicated gardeners, it has to be me.  I live in a small town in
northeastern Ohio on a small lot, about 50x150.  Owing to the fact
that this small lot has 9 oak trees, I have never had enough sun for a
lovely perennial garden.  (one does get a little tired of hostas,
impatiens and begonias year after year).  Over the past two years we
lost three of our biggest oak trees to oak wilt disease and, lo and
behold, I discovered that we now have a little patch of ground that
gets a goodly amount of sunshine. " Eureka,!" says I," I can plant a
little garden. "( We are talking here of a patch of ground about 24
feet x 5 feet.)I got hold of some catalogues and pored over them and
sent off my order.  Last fall I killed myself getting the ground ready
to receive the plants and by the time I was done adding peat moss, cow
manure, compost etc. and digging and spading and all, I had the soil
yummy enough to lie down in myself.  The plants I ordered arrived in
due time and I planted them and bought little markers to label them
and then sat back and waited for spring to arrive and greet me with a
glorious garden.  That's when all my problems began.
As things began popping up, I noticed some bare spots and decided that
some of the plants hadn't survived the winter. (it never dawned on me
that some things come up later than other things), so I rushed off to
the local nursery and bought more plants to fill in the "bare spots". 
As April progressed into May, I began to notice that some of the
plants I had placed in the front of the garden were way taller thn
some of the things in the back of the garden.  This brought to my
attention that when the catalogue says "ht. 2-4 ft. that there is a
vast difference between 2 ft and 4 ft. So I then began frantically to
move things from the back to the front.  About mid-may, some strange
things began to happen.  I had planted some shasta daisies to cover
one of the "bare spots" I mentioned earlier.  I discovered that I had
some very strange foliage in my shasta daisies and it finally dawned
on me that the things I had planted in the first place were coming up
after all.  Then of course I had to dig up the shasta daisies and cram
them in somewhere else.  I could go on and on with this tale but by
now I'm sure you get the idea.  At this point, I have no idea what is
growing where.  I have replanted and rearranged so many times that the
little plant labels don't mean a thing.  Everyday is a surprise.  In
my own defense, I must say that my foxgloves are truly magnificent. 
It will be interesting as the summer progresses, to discover what
things are.  
I promise to heed all the advice you people offer and I promise not to
offer any of my own as I don't think it would be too helpful.
Jeanne in Ohio



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