Marianne and Mother Earth

This summer (2013) witnessed a first for Joel, and consequently a first for me (Marianne). Joel attended his first Boy Scout weeklong camping trip in Oklahoma and Sergio accompanied him as one of the helper dads. As a result, for the first time in my motherhood life, I had the whole house to myself. YEAH!!!! Jake predicted I would cry, like I had done when Jeremy entered kindergarten and I was home alone during the school day for the first time since having kids (but pregnant with Joel, so that only lasted two months).

Anyway, cry I did not!!! I slept in (‘til about 8:00am), ate whatever I wanted (didn’t have to cook – leftovers were perfect), ate whenever I wanted (dinner at 10:00pm after working on a project), watched whatever I wanted (a PBS show on the Constitution with Peter Sagal – I highly recommend it), took a trip to the temple and did visiting teaching, and best of all: read and took naps in the afternoon. What a life! I could have been content with this, but for weeks just prior to this dream vacation of mine, each time I would look out my window into the back yard, I stared at weeds that haunted me in my sleep, weeds that were intended to torment man. Aaaaagh!!!! But I’m a woman, how is this happening?

Thankfully, Sergio had responded to my much nagging and complaining and had wacked them away and sprayed them to their death with weed killer before he and Joel left for camp. So in addition to my chance at experimenting with slothfulness, I determined to take care of the missing landscaping once and for all. It was going to be me against mother earth. Do or die, I would landscape the demon section of the yard or bust. (For those of you who haven’t lived here: this section in particular, which is right by the pool, is always covered in weeds that we have pulled and pulled, sprayed and sprayed and even paid and paid a landscape company to take care of, but then we neglect it due to our good intentions of someday planting something there only to repeat the cycle).

As I was sleeping in on Monday morning, I could hear a storm outside: no landscaping today. On Tuesday, same thing, so I ventured a trip to the temple. On my way home (now bright and sunny) I stopped at Calloways to get some plants. Nothing major, just some innocent little Lantana flowers that cost 88¢ each, what harm could that do? I bought a dozen. Oh, while there, I saw some other very attractive flowers, fancy looking lilies for $19.99 ea. Surely they will add massive beauty to the landscape. Nope, they were barely noticeable so back to the nursery they went. How could I have spent almost a hundred dollars (including dirt – I can’t believe we humans spend money on dirt) and yet the landscape still looks bare?

On Wednesday: off to Lowe’s to buy plants that hopefully give me more bang for my buck. I bought 3 dome-shaped plants that we had by our pool in our other home years ago. Oooopps, one source says plant in full sun (which is what we have) and another source says half sun, half shade. Back to Lowe’s. This time I did some research and bought 3 dwarf Youpon hollies, 3-gallon size, also dome-ish shaped, but full sun lovers (or so they say, hopefully that’s true). So as to not overwhelm myself (ooops, too late), … so as to outsmart my internal ‘fight or flight’ from stressful projects mechanism, I leave Lowe’s with just this one purchase. I figure if I can get these planted, then I can go back and buy another plant or two. This is a manifestation of my newly acquired life skill called ‘pacing myself’. I think it works.

Since the instructions say to dig a hole twice the width of the plant, I spent most of my Wednesday evening digging 3 holes and prepping the dirt (it had to be mixed with the native soil which is clay-like; no easy job – it made cooking seem easy). In two hours (from 7:30 to 9:30pm) I was done with digging 3 large holes, mixing dirt, planting 3 plants, watering/stimulating their roots, and mulching. It was too dark to see what it looked like, but first thing Thursday morning, I could see it: taking shape, but still too bare.

At this point I needed professional advice for what plants to buy that would complement what was already there (3 palms and these Youpon hollies). Not that I could afford this (my budget was only $300.00 and I had used up about $100.00), but advice by way of stealing some professional’s ideas via pictures. After doing my ‘research’ (followed by a well-deserved nap), I found a few ideas online and in a magazine. From these I determined that I needed some plant or plants that stick up; something grassy looking to contrast the dome-shaped Yaupons. I would also need some filler plants to put in between the palms and some plants for another section as well, so off to Lowe’s I go Thursday evening.

I found the perfect plant: a Yukka. Despite its unattractive name, it’s perfect! I put it in the center of the dome under the palm trees in a pot we had hanging around our garbage cans. Yeah! For the filler plants I found two Black Knight Butterfly bushes on clearance ($5.00 each) and a Rosemary bush, which I stuck in another salvaged pot to go in the landscape too. The sun was long gone by the time I finished, but I still had two more days before Sergio and Joel would return.

Friday’s goal was to add color, so I bought six Marigolds to go along the edge of the pool in front of the mound of plants. Since they were small, it didn’t take too much time or effort. On Saturday I decided I needed to add 2 more Marigolds and more mulch, so even though they were back and we were flying to CA in the morning, while we were out shoe shopping, we made a quick stop at Lowe’s. I should have been packing, but I was determined to finish this first, so at about 9:30pm-ish, I was done planting. YEAH!!!!

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