Home & Garden

With summer being about as much fun as a hornet's nest hat, I find solace in planning for the future.

This year that means transplanting.

Despite nasty rumors to the contrary, there's no such thing as permanence when it comes to gardening. Like a living room with too much furniture, gardens are a constant work-in-progress.

Emphasis on the "work."

And that's what I miss during the summer — that sense of direction, of purpose, of "piddling" (according to My Lovely Wife) around in the yard until it's well past dark and my dinner's grown cold on the stove. But since May, my shovel and spade have been on vacation as I've spent the better part of the last four months lugging jugs and water hoses all across God's wilting creation.

And they say this has been a mild summer … only if by "mild" they mean burst-into-flames-by-mid-afternoon hot.

Fortunately, I'm enough of a novice to have made plenty of planting mistakes. So while I water and whine, I can also entertain myself by making a mental "To Do" list that grows longer with each passing day.

When it comes to buying plants, I'm like someone who's fallen off the Weight Watchers wagon and ends up staring down the barrel of an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet. But rather than my eyes being bigger than my stomach, mine are usually bigger than my yard.

One visit to a Master Gardeners plant sale and suddenly I'm surrounded by more trees and shrubs than I've got ground to stick 'em in. So, I end up pacing around every square inch of yard until I've worked myself into a foaming frenzy worthy of Cujo.

That's usually when I'll run inside, panting and pleading for help from My Lovely Wife, who just sticks her head out the door, surveys the land and says, "Put it there."

Perfect. It's the decisions I've made on my own (usually purchased and planted behind her back) that need rethinking.

I am a conscientious gardener. Respectful of those who will someday live upon my land long after I've shifted off this mortal coil, leaving behind only a well-manicured jungle and the lingering scent of Febreeze. I don't want some stranger to live with my perennial mistakes. It's a courtesy my home's previous landscaper didn't feel compelled to pay forward.

"Ye who plants crepe myrtles in the shade shall be doomed to deal with its ugliness for all eternity." So saith the shepherd, so saith the flock.

That's why in the fall my first order of business will be finding a new home for a towering October maple. The grass, not to mention trees, truly do grow greener on the other side of the septic tank, but since some numbskull planted it close to the patio, it'll have to be moved.

Same thing for the army of blooming butterfly bushes that have quietly consumed one tiny part-shade bed. Like a mafia rat, they'll need to be relocated for fear of reprisals from the tea olives.

Then there are the bottlebrush … those poor, tender bottlebrush that need shelter from the harsh winds of winter and have changed addresses more times than Corey Haim's been in rehab.

But that's just the heavy lifting — nevermind the Japanese Maples that need repotting, the bulbs that need dividing, the gardenias that need pruning and the mulch that needs spreading.

Fall can't come soon enough. And I'm not even talking about football.