Weeds of Change

The two summers before this one, I was pretty enthralled with landscaping. I planted a few shrubs and small trees, and tended to them all the time. I watered, weeded, mulched, and lovingly fertilized with compost. My rhododendrons, dwarf spruces, and euonymus were thriving.

This year...not so much.

I don't want to say that I've completely lost interest in landscaping. It's just that other, more new interests have taken priority this summer. I've been busy, and haven't made the landscaping a priority. (As evidenced by the murderous tomato plant I referenced a few weeks ago which, incidentally, is now  fruiting very nicely!)

As any good gardener knows, weeding is essential. And I don't mind weeding, if I have nothing better to do. But lately I just haven't been compelled to weed. And so the weeds in one of the rhododendron beds got a little out of control.

There came a point a few weeks ago when I said to myself, "I hope the lawn guys whacked those weeds in the rhododendron bed." You know, I'd still have to pull them up myself, but I thought maybe I'd get a surprise helping hand. No such luck. So the weeds stayed.

Can you guess where this is going?

Fast forward a few weeks and I now have humongo weeds in front of the house. I could get down on myself for this, and let those old self-deprecating tapes play. If I did, they'd probably say things like:

• What the hell is wrong with me? What is so hard about tearing up a few weeds?
• What will the neighbors think?
• Why do I always lose interest in things so quickly? No one else does this!

Fortunately for me, I don't give a shit. I would have at one time but, at this point, I'm able to laugh about these attentional inconsistencies and just go with the flow.

In this case, my weeds also have flowers. So I'm now calling them "wild flowers" and pretending that I meant for them to grow there all along. And from the street, you might even think they look nice! I'm sure that I'm not fooling the landscaping guys, the UPS guy, or anyone else who comes to the door, but who cares? There are worse things in life than a few weeds in the front yard. (Unless you're a rhododendron.)