Learning to garden

Last night, while Mr. Speedy was manning the barbecue, I finally mustered up the courage to pull a giant weed — which towered above my 5'7" frame, and was considerably wider than me — from my garden.

The green, spiky plant reached its gigantic proportions due to my ignorance of all things green and growing (and stories like this don't help me feel any more confident! I don't want to go wrestling with those killer plants...)

When we first moved in, we had an enormous list of things to do inside and out. And because the garden was in pretty good shape, and because I didn't know what I was doing, I let it slide down my list of priorities.

The next time I took a good look at it, all the plants were roughly the same size, so I wasn't sure which were weeds and which were intentionally planted. I didn't want to go hauling stuff out of the garden all willy nilly and accidentally rip out something we'd enjoy.

So, instead of doing the responsible homeowner thing and asking for help, I decided to wait it out.

And now, a few weeks too long later, here we are. The giant green beast — which in fact, I'd left for so long that I had to enlist Mr. Speedy to help wrestle the darn thing out of the ground — was the final straw.

So, starting now, I'm going to try to channel my inner green thumb.

Looking at my garden, I can now pretty much guess what plants are weeds because they're either way larger than everything else (like the monster we ripped out last night) or have just grown ridiculously fast, sprouting out of nowhere and encroaching on the pretty daylilies currently in bloom. A little bit of internet research, and a bit of courage born out of exasperation, should help fill in any remaining gaps.

I've got the gloves. I've got a pair of heavy duty pruning shears. Now all I need is a sunny day to start whipping the space back into shape!