I had one simple task to tend to. I assigned it a duration length of three minutes on my “Daily Tasks” spreadsheet. It fit beautifully between “replace the light bulb in the bathroom” and “find my W2 form”. It was this:

Carry the recently cut branches of the Ninebark to the woods and deposit them there.

The spreadsheet entry looked like this: rmv 9 brnchs

Yes I frown upon vowels with my abbreviating.

This was to be a simple dump and run. One task out of many for the day. A mindless job that would get my lazy butt outdoors. An easy one to remove from the list.

It all went spectacularly wrong.

I made the mistake of looking to my left as I approached the woods. I knew better than that. Never ever allow the eyes to wander when outside in the yard this time of year. A glance toward the garden in winter never turns out well. It’s always devastating. With all of the storms we’ve suffered through the past few weeks, it was even more of a reason to do nothing but stare straight ahead.

It was not the time to speculate on plant damage.

That could be done another day, after I’d had enough time to prep myself emotionally.

But I couldn’t un-see this.

Or this.

All of which then sent me down a path of pacing. That annual dread-filled pacing in the garden. Dread-filled pacing that on this day, went on for twenty three sad minutes where I compiled a full assessment of all that had gone wrong.

The light bulb would have to wait.

That witch hazel planted in fall? Deader than dead.

The ‘Wichita Blue’ juniper that anchored this corner? Split in half from the ice and winds.

And these were only the easily visible victims. The list goes on.

Winter, you are not and will never be my friend.

After the inventory and mourning was complete, I stepped back inside, blew my nose and returned to the couch where I could reflect and stew. I was 51% sad and 49% pissed off. All of those years tending to these plants went for naught. All of the design decisions were an exercise in futility. All of the blood and sweat could have been funneled elsewhere.

I know gardening isn’t a life or death thing. I understand it’s just a fun little hobby. I’m fully aware that I require a perspective adjustment. But fuck, I take the failures personally. I question my past judgment, believing it had a hand in the plants’ demise.

I consider giving up. I scream, flail and shed a tear.

This malaise typically sticks around for a lot longer than I’d like to admit. It takes weeks before it even starts to dissipate in the slightest.

Once the weather warms up, greenery arrives and a few flowers reveal themselves, I push forward like a man possessed. I become nothing but task-oriented as I try to replace what has perished and get my garden back to a point where it looks presentable again.

The labor keeps my mind occupied.
It’s exhausting but necessary.
It’s all consuming.

I miss out on the joys of spring while I’m lamenting the pains of winter.

By summer I’ve finally moved on and I’m not sure if I’ve had one moment of true happiness in the garden.

Rinse and repeat.

For those of you who don’t know, I recently finished writing my second book. It’s tentatively titled:

Seed, Grow, Love, Write
One man’s slow journey to fulfillment

Another big thank-you to all who offered up title suggestions. We’ll see if this one actually sticks.

The book is a series of short stories that cover the entirety of my life from childhood to current day. It’s memoir-like, but I refuse to call it a memoir. I’m not that interesting.

I like to think of it as a look back on how I discovered my love of gardening which ultimately led me to my true (and I hate to use the word but here it goes) passion, which is writing. The stories are small in a purposeful way. Stories that we all can relate to without any huge “A Ha” moments.

I discovered more about myself as I was writing this book than I could’ve ever imagined. The journey made more sense as I pieced it all together.

My hope is that readers will relate and maybe grab even the slightest bit of inspiration with their own lives.

But enough romanticizing about the book. The full-court sales push will come at a later date (May?). You’ve been warned.

My point is this:

A good portion of the stories in the book focus on gardening:
The early years outside with my dad.
The first garden at our first home.
The discovery of ornamental grasses.
Planting minutes after getting stitches in my arm.
Transplanting using my car’s headlights.

After writing and editing them all, I came to realize that all of the stories share a common thread.

They all reveal the joy of the journey.

I honestly look back fondly on all of the struggles and all of the mistakes. I wouldn’t change a thing if I could go back in time.

I’d still welcome the deer.
I’d still battle the poor draining soil.
I’d still make the same mistakes.

The book has changed my perspective on my garden. I no longer have dreams of creating anywhere near the perfect garden. I’ve given up on ever hosting tour through my impeccably maintained landscape.

I’m comfortable being freakishly organized in my life and with my plants and also realizing that it can’t be sustained.

I’m good with complaining incessantly one day and then living in the moment the next day.

The garden, she is my muse.

I can post pretty pictures along the way and I can educate readers as best I can, but the joy comes in the writing. The joy comes in the sharing. The joy comes in the creating. The joy comes in getting lost for hours as I dig, as I plant and as I write.

And this garden, she’ll be my muse for a lifetime.

That is so freeing.

I didn’t say I’ll be 100% chill overnight. As you can see from the beginning of this story, I still lost it the other day when confronting destruction in my garden.

But I allowed myself to get angry.
I allowed myself to be sad.
I allowed myself to question my abilities.

That’s the journey.

As is the calm me who has since moved on and is writing this right now.

I suck at the whole setting and attaining goals deal. Like I’m not sure if I’ve ever actually set one and if I did, I forgot what it was.

True story: The day I met my wife, freshman year in college, I managed to tell her within minutes of meeting that “I have no goals”. Gentleman, try that one on for size and let me know how it plays out. How this woman still agreed to hang with me after that I’ll never know and I won’t be selling my “Blueprint to Meeting and Retaining Your Future Wife” eBook any time soon. There had to have been divine intervention in play or my boyish charm was just too overwhelming to pass up.

Truth is, I have lived the majority of my life for the day or if I’m being generous, for the week. I’m not sure which parent supplied me with this DNA but it is who I have been for as far back as I can remember. I wasn’t one of those kids who would say “When I grow up, I want to …” and I have vivid memories of listening to those goal-oriented SOB’s and thinking, you’re shitting me, right? You can’t possibly be thinking that far ahead. We’re 5 and we’re supposed to be catching lightning bugs and riding our Big Wheels.

I’ve got anecdotes for days.

I was a solid to “good” basketball player in high school (helps when you are 6 foot 3 in a small town with a small pool of players) and probably had potential to be “dang good”. But guess who didn’t train in the off season or hit the weight room to add much needed muscle to his skinny frame? Don’t mess with #21.

I still remember my father offering to make me protein shakes and urging me to practice my jump shot nightly. I chose Wiffleball and Atari instead. I didn’t dream of making the varsity team as a freshman or set my sights on All League honors. I played hard and enjoyed the game during the season but after that I moved on.

The gist of my college entry essay was that I looked forward to discovering my passion while attending school and dedicating myself to it fully. A laser sharp focus with goals to carry it over to a career. I was ready to mature and the collegiate atmosphere would do just that for me.

That laser sharp focus took me from a Journalism major to an unknown major to a Criminal Justice major/Psychology minor to eventually taking the LSAT’s for law school only to never pursue that path and then dabbling in private investigation before settling in the insurance industry where I reside today. A true plan never entered the equation.

Now this mentality does have its advantages:

• It is a lot easier to enjoy the smaller moments in life. Future? Who cares, this apple is delicious.
• Stress levels remain low. There is no formal map to follow and no need to constantly assess where we are on said map.
• You become the rock for others. Aren’t you worried about “blank” or “blank” John? Me, not one iota. I’m living for today, man.

But some serious disadvantages:

• A lot of shit doesn’t get done. What’s the rush or why the urgency, bro?
• The burden of future thinking falls on your significant other. Just ask my wife.
• A true sense of accomplishment. “Wow, I did that” is against all odds is foreign to me.

Now don’t start painting me with the lazy brush or a wanna-be hippie (I’m talking to myself here). I’ve managed to navigate life rather decently to this point. I graduated college, got married and bought a few houses. We pay our bills each month, hold down jobs and we’ve managed to raise some pretty kick ass children along the way in spite of me. It has just been a battle of trying to shed a personality flaw and do my best to become a more goal oriented and future thinking fellow.

And that battle only continues to intensify as I get older.

Since technically, this is a garden blog, I’ll spare you my personal, professional, financial, etc. goal building and goal assessment plan. God bless my wife for setting the foundation on these fronts. It is time for me to step up to the plate but that will be handled on the down low.

But with garden goals, I am an open book or as open as the hole in the middle of my irises that I’ve failed to divide for years now. I’ve been passionate about this blog for over 7 years and even more passionate about my garden beyond that. It is who I am and what I do. And here’s one for you: I’ve got a book in me and it is in the works. That’s a friggin goal and one I will accomplish. I’ve never felt more confident in my life. But that doesn’t mean Johnnie doesn’t still have goal issues in the garden.

Case in point.

This past weekend we were up in Vermont visiting friends and ended up in the inevitable sitting around, enjoying some beverages and let’s get into deep discussion mode. The kind where you ignore the kids who have been on their devices for hours and the kids in turn wonder why adults like sitting around and talking so much. What should have been relatively light discussion ended up getting me all panicky. Not what you are supposed to do on vacation.

Topic #1 was the requisite pie-in-the-sky discussion.

“If you could start any business regardless of finances, location, etc. what would it be?”

To the surprise of exactly no one, I dream of a nursery that not only offers uncommon and interesting plants but also brings you killer coffee in the morning and craft beers from 12:00 on. We talk nothing but plants and gardens and sports while you traverse my grounds. Oodles of native ornamental grasses. There are plant/seed swaps daily and Piet Oudolf makes the occasional guest appearance. I make frequent visits to your home to see how your plants are doing. And maybe pull a few weeds along the way.

Quick aside: There was also a long discussion about an Uber type service for local kids’ activities. A lot of potential here. Please don’t steal this idea. And my wife’s idea is so unique and so solid that I can’t even share it here. It could work and I’m not messing that up.

So back to my potential nursery business. While it was a light conversation among friends, I felt a twinge of uneasiness. Should I at least be doing some level of research into this? If I really feel strongly about it, don’t I owe it to myself? A non-long-term-goal-setter like me typically shrugs this off. But I’m not getting any younger and I’d want to do this while I was still spry and full of energy. Should I be building a timeline/succession plan from my current job? How do the kids and college factor in? We’re so not in financial risk mode right now, but shit, I so want to pursue this in spite of myself.

Topic #2 was simple and straight forward:

Would you do a kitchen makeover?

As the discussion weaved in and out about cabinets, islands, subway tile and track lighting I found myself nodding out of that conversation and moving on to my own internal discussion. Is it possible to “redo” your garden?

My initial thought was “no”. While it is relatively easy to change cabinet doors, paint walls and switch out hardware, you cannot replace mature trees and shrubs. Beyond the physical labor, the prohibitive cost to buy new mature trees and shrubs make it a ridiculously expensive proposition. But what if I really wanted to attempt a garden makeover, albeit one on a smaller scale? Do I have enough time to start over? Do I have the time to actually install it?

From there, I allowed my mind to wander even further and after bypassing the idea of making over the garden, I started to do the math to determine how much longer I had with my current garden. The factors included:

• College – if we follow the standard four year plan, my son would graduate in 2024 and my daughter in 2028. That is roughly 12 years from now.

• Relocation – my wife and I dream of moving south to warmer weather and near the ocean. We’d wait until after the kids graduate from college at a minimum.
• Current jobs – when can we say goodbye or more likely, when will they show us the door? Could we keep our jobs upon relocating?

With all that in mind, I couldn’t get 12 years out of my head. Shit, only 12 more years. Do I need to take that into account when buying new trees and shrubs? Do I need to lay out a plan or gulp, start setting goals around the end game of my garden as I know it? For years I’ve tackled a bit at a time without any thought as to how it ties into a larger master plan. Is it time to change that mentality? Do I care what the next homeowners will do with my garden? What if they tear it all out?

I have dreamed of getting my garden to the point where it could be showcased as part of a public garden tour and I can’t imagine accomplishing that in the next 12 years. Should I develop a specific site plan in order to attempt this? Does it take away from the day to day enjoyment of my garden and does that impact what I write about here?

A lot of questions with precious few answers at this point.

To be continued …

QOTD: Do you have a long term vision/plan for your garden?

The following is an exact account of a recent weekday morning in my garden. I kid you not, the exact times were recorded for authenticity. Also, the emotional roller coaster captured here is 100% real. I caught the gardening bug in 1998 and there is nothing I can do to get rid of it.   

5:44 AM – Alarm goes off … and when I say alarm, I mean my wife physically assaults gently nudges me as she shuts off the alarm I never heard/hear. Time to tend to the garden because it is my passion (now re-read that previous sentence knowing it is 100% sarcastic).

5:47 AM – Coffee is made. Why am I up this early? Am I a farmer?

5:53 AM –  I am standing in my driveway with a large lightweight container that is easily portable and great for collecting weeds, an Ames trowel (product placement intentional), pruners and my coffee mug. There are multiple unidentifiable insects in my coffee. I am not fazed. There is a creepy/cool fog I have to walk through to get to the backyard. There is nothing but the sounds of the birds and Japanese beetles flying stupidly into the vinyl siding (more on that later).

6:00 AM – I start to eradicate some weeds and have this overwhelming desire to stop. I’ve been weeding like mad for days now and I am fried. This always happens when I know we will be having people over in the not too distant future. Normally I don’t sweat the weeds too much and have no issue when the garden is “under construction”. I know the end game. But when regular folk (aka non-plant people) are expected to view the garden, I feel the pressure to clean it up. Non-weedy bare earth appeals to the masses more so than a wonderful mash-up of summer perennials.

6:05 AM – I’m done. Cannot complete another task. But I am up and awake so I’m going to attempt to tour the garden with an eye towards future planning and a simple enjoyment of all that I’ve done over the past few months.

6:06 AM – Oh good.

Even better.

The Japanese Beetles have arrived in masses and they have taken up residence on many of my plants. They haven’t been an issue for years but man they have made up for lost time. I literally start squishing them in my hands in a fit of anger.

So much for no tasks.

After 100 or so fatalities I realize this will take all day. For the most part they are only on the Dappled Willow and one Basil plant. I’ll leave them for now and then fix the damage before everyone’s arrival on Sunday.

I’m losing all of my gardening mojo.

6:23 AM – There is nothing I could have done. There is nothing I could have done. There is nothing I could have done. Beetle traps don’t work. Beetle traps don’t work.

6:30 AM – Wow. I love the combo of the ‘Little Grapette’ daylillies and the foliage of Penstemon ‘Husker’s Red’. How have I never noticed that before? Oh yeah, because the deer never allow the daylillies to bloom.

Mojo coming back a smidge.

6:34 AM– It may be everywhere, but dammit if I don’t love the simple combo of Purple Coneflower and Russian Sage.

Or should I be more creative? Am I better than that? Damn, how snobby. Who do you think you are?

6:40 AM – Is this an Abelia? I always considered it a space filler but now it seems to stand out more than before. I should move it to a new location. But why, let it continue to get established, right?

Does everyone over analyze their garden as much as I do? I need a hobby.

6:47 AM – I still say surrounding my vegetable/herb garden with grasses was one of my better moves. Although soon I’ll need to hurdle the grasses in order to tend to my tomatoes/beans/zucchini.

6:54 AM – I’ve resorted to cutting all of my hydrangea blooms and bringing them indoors before the deer destroy them. Does that mean I win or the deer win? Or does my wife win with the blooms indoors? Why haven’t I done that for her more often?

7:00 AM – In the shower and getting ready for the day job. You know, the one that actually PAYS.

If you have read this blog long enough, you know I have mastered the art of over promising and under delivering.

Not to mention dreaming big and doing nothing about it.

Or the love of a good ramble. 

This post covers all of those.    

To this day, I cherish and long for my lunch hour trips to the local nursery/garden center. One to two times per week, starting in March and ending in November, I can be spotted walking amongst the plants wearing a sensible polo shirt and the same pair of jeans I’ve had for 4 years now. It is a much needed break from the “desk job” and a chance to become “ONG” for an hour or so.

Contrary to how it sounds, I don’t make a ton of purchases while I’m at the garden center. Some times it is purely research, some times it is the hunt for a specific plant(s) and some times it is to wander aimlessly. It all does the soul well. It is my domain and where I belong. Not to sound too corny, but I am thankful to be able to have a garden that allows me to fill it with plants, a family that supports my passion and the health to be able to do it all without issue.

That was too sappy. Now I need to change it up and talk to you about something I witnessed while wandering the garden center earlier this week. It still sticks with me today and I apologize in advance for putting you through this.

As I walked through the main entrance of the nursery, my eyes were not drawn to the blooming hydrangeas, but to a dude wearing a tank top exactly like this.

Except he didn’t look exactly like that.

At all.

Imagine a cockier George Costanza with slick backed, jet black hair and a remarkable tan. My best guess is early 50’s.

I fought off the urge many times to pull his mini shirt back to cover his nipples which he apparently was thrilled to expose. Was anyone else as in awe as I was? I love and hate this guy all at the same time. So Jersey.

But even stranger than that was the fact that he had one small Sedum groundcover in his hands that he stared at, put down and then picked back up in an endless cycle.

He was there as long as I was and never moved off of the Sedum purchasing decision. I would have killed to have known how it all was playing out in his head. And to follow him home to not only see how long he would wear that shirt, but ultimately where that Sedum ended up.

I could excuse the attire, but never the purchase of only one groundcover.

Moving on.

In the early days of taking the weekly trek to the nursery, I learned about plants through theft. These days, I enjoy it for different reasons. At my mature age of 42 and having been around the garden block a few times over, I am well aware of those plants that will never work for me (basically anything that isn’t deer resistant and prefers sandy soil).

As a result, my vision is much more narrow. I enter with a purpose and the number of nonsensical purchases has been dramatically reduced. This pinpoint focus allows me to make smart decisions and my garden has improved as a result.

I also enjoy walking around and butting into other peoples’ conversations or personal contemplations. I am a quiet individual for the most part and typically mind my own business, but I have no issue jumping in where it is required.

“You don’t want that Crepe Myrtle, it won’t survive the winters here in zone 6B.”

“Really, another Arborvitae? Have you not seen enough of them around here? Let’s expand our horizons, aight.”

“Yes, that Ligularia will handle some sun. Do it.”

Thank you and come again.

Over the years, I’ve also observed the art of “the sell”. Or should I say the lack of “the sell”. My best estimate is that 75% of the shoppers at the nursery don’t know very much. Especially if they are there during the peak months of April/May when everything is at full price (note: buy in mid to late summer and late fall). These people need to be guided and educated. Put down those impatiens and let’s talk perennials. You don’t want only one coneflower, you want seven and here’s why.

As I paced the garden center this week, I came to a realization. I would love to own a nursery and sell plants to the public. My years of wandering their grounds has taught me that. I would love to impart my knowledge on those in desperate need of it. I would love to bring them coffee in the morning and share my new favorite IPA with them in the afternoon as they browse my amazing collection of Andropogons.

I want to hang with plant people and provide them with unique finds.

Of course I say all this without considering all that goes into it. I’m not that naive. And I am too risk averse to ever give it a try. But it is the aspect of gardening I enjoy the most.

I could never get into garden design because:

a)I only like what I like

b)I find that I lose interest when it comes to other peoples gardens

c)It seems like a lot of work

But plants without consideration of how they play with others is pretty fantastic. I can even imagine buyers taking the plants home and sending me pictures of them all grown up (the plants that is). People posing with their Panicums like they were a pet. We’d all be one big plant loving family and there would be peace throughout the world.

Guess I better keep my day job to fund this little adventure.

Have a great weekend.