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Friday, February 22, 2008

Delusions of Gardening Grandeur

Someone should stop me from reading garden magazines, especially FINE GARDENING. Seriously, it's not the magazine, it's me. My inner gardener suffers by comparison or gets delusions of grandeur.

Take this morning. I had dug an old issue out of the cabinet ( FINE GARDENING October 2004) to check out designing with ornamental grasses; when what distracted me? An article about street side garden design. "OOOH, I can do that," my inner garden voice said, "it would look so fabulous, all I would have to do is replace the a, b and c with x, y and z". You know, make it even better!

Delusions creating garden illusions.

Let's get real. I live in the suburbs, on a fairly busy street. We haven't any sidewalks. Besides we have a 6 foot high privacy hedge (forsythia) across the entire front yard. Where was this street side garden going to be located? "Well," said my inner gardener, "I could remove a few shrubs on the other side of the driveway, build up the soil, add some rocks, ...."

Gail

14 comments:

  1. spoken like a true gardener!

    did you see last month's magazine? it featured BLUE jewelweed! i have ordered some to go with my orange. i am ever so excited!

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  2. I think we all do that. We get these ideas in our head of what looks great and try to emulate them! Unfortunately we never have enough space to do everything we want.

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  3. LOL! I really enjoyed your post. My inner gardener swings both ways too.~~Dee

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  4. Gail .. I can NOT look at a magazine or book without that terrible "wanting" happening .. I so would love a private garden . out of view of my neighbors .. so I could sneak out in my pajamas in the summer and weed, dead head .. just enjoy my garden all by myself.
    I can't even visit the subject of wanting to make parts of my garden look like some of the gorgeous ones I have seen.
    What is great about us as gardeners is that we keep on trying all the same ! You have to enjoy that aspect : )
    Joy

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  5. Tina, Dave and dee,

    Well there must be a garden gene or perhaps a personality typology for all of us. I know there's a bit of the addict (to plants)....I am going to think about this one for a while.

    Gail

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  6. Gardenjoy,

    We are hopefilled, too.

    Gail

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  7. Fine Gardening, especially those older issues have the most amazing gardens features. Such inspiration. When we cease to be inspired by beautiful gardens, what will be the point?

    Frances at Faire Garden

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  8. gail, it must be it all summed up with obsession. why else would we talk about it all the time?

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  9. Tina and Frances,

    I am thinking about gardening even more since I started blogging. Every where are ideas....I have every Fine Gardening issue since the first one! I know the earlier ones better than the newest.

    Gardenjoyforme,

    I do go outside and work in my pj's sometime usually I was on the way to get the paper and was side tracked by a weed or two or something that just needed a little tending.

    Gail

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  10. This was funny - and how true. Sometimes the ideas are totally impractical but for a time, I think I just have to try them out.

    Thankfully reality usually intrudes ...

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  11. Did you have to make it sound like a bad idea? I will tackle anything if it looks good on paper! I'm always thinking of a way to make it happen just like you said. I dream a lot!

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  12. Annaflowergardengirl,

    Not so much a bad idea but an exciting, enticing, seductive one!! There is something about a new project, more plants (can there ever be enought?), different plants, tweaking a good idea, getting it just so......

    Laughing at myself at 6:15 am and trying not to wake my husband.

    Gail

    Gail

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  13. I don't think a garden can ever be "complete", can it? Even when I lived in the same house for years I was always moving plants and adding plants. I'll try anything once...or twice...okay, as many times as it takes for me to get it right. LOL. It's just this little voice inside me that whispers to me. Like, how can your sister AND you mom grow roses and you can't? It will happen! Just plant them and they will grow! Until the winter when they die and refuse to come back!

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