What’s Missing From This Picture?

This is my fence line between our home and my daughter’s. Yes, my daughter and her family live right next door! She bought my in-laws’ home when they moved next door into my husband’s grandparent’s house. Anyway, back to my fence. A few years ago, my husband put this garden row in for me and I love it. I would bring home so many different plants and one Fall I was so excited to bring a bag of yellow daffodils. He groaned. He complained, and he planted. Each year he would make this garden row a little longer, and I kept on bringing more and more daffodils. I guess I should have explained my vision.

I imagined a mass of color every March. But this year, as I looked up to my daughter’s home, I kept thinking, what is wrong here? Where are all my beautiful daffodils? Did the squirrels eat them, even though they are supposed to be ‘squirrel proof?” Did some die out? Why just there? One day, my husband was outside with me, and I mentioned to him that it was such a shame that those bulbs did not make it after all these years. He just looked at me and said they did not die; he dug them up? What!!!!

Q: “Why would you do that?”
A:”They were in the way. Way too many.”

Only not in such polite tones. Apparently, last year after they finished blooming and the leaves had died down, he dug up a lot to thin them out. Sigh… I never explained what my goal was. But then maybe I should have expected this. He and I do not agree with what this garden row should look like. I want a mass of color all Spring, Summer, and Fall. Different textures. Different scents. His vision is more of put one plant here and another there. Do not let the perennials mix. I swear, just as soon as I have a beautiful cluster of anything, he digs them up and moves some to other sections.

So we had a conversation this week. I said, “I will be buying another 100 or so daffodils”. He told me he would not be planting them. What he does not know is I am planning on getting some more perennials for the sun since we cut down some of our big trees last Fall, and I am thinking some Black-eyed Susan’s will look beautiful. Another rose bush or two. Maybe a Sedum section will look good.

Wish me luck!

Stephanie Fleming