I come from a long line of plant experts. My father is a plant geneticist. His father kept an orchard as a hobby- mom had the goat farm dad grew apricots, walnuts, pecans, nectarines…. My mum, after divorce, befriended a landscaper whose hobby was bonsai-now theres a high maintenance garden. I grew up in a forest. Or as big as a forest as one can fit into a large livingroom. With trees and plants and trees and more plants. The ‘backyard’ was a mass of trees. Hundreds of them. I am not exaggerating. There were plants in every room of the house and no lawn to mow since everything was covered in plants. Are we getting the picture? Plants, plants, plants.

For the last 9 years I have been living in apartments with no plants or place to put plants. I have spent this time perusing gardening sites on the web. Finally I broke down and ordered 2 samplers of gladiolas from Old House Gardens. Of course I ended up with 50corns instead of the 10 I thought I was getting. It was an innocent mistake. They do sell bulbs one at a time and I was ordering a newsletter thingie where it specifically said one each of 5 different varieties. Unfortunately I had typed in the wrong number and ended up with a sample that had been sold out for many months[how does that happen?] that was 5 each of 5 different varieties. So now I spend hours outside counting the little shoots. No Joke. First there was one then 3 days latter there was 2 but by daysend make that 3. 2 shoots have popped up since this morning. I am obsessed.

I still spend an inordinate amount of time perusing online gardening catalogs. It seems that the closer I get to actually owning a home the more I plan my garden. I do kinda regret I do not live in a more temperate climate. The Jacaranda trees are tempting me into moving south. I will settle for some apple trees. And a garden with tomatoes and garlic and onions and potatoes and beans as in lentil. I am a madwoman. Then of course there are flowers. I wonder how difficult it would be to create a garden sans lawn in some neighborhood with codes. I also wonder if the black thumb, which consistently caused me to kill each and every plant that ever crossed my path as a child, has started to sprout.

TTFN

any gardening pros know about zones? Arbor Day peeps say I am 6-7 but the map shows me as 5 and auntie[who does garden] says we are 4.