doodles by andre: what gardeners regret

SOMETIMES IT’S THE PLANT WE BOUGHT (as in “wrong plant, wrong place,” above); other times the cause of our gardener’s lament-bordering-on-shame is a little trickier, more the stuff you’d have to sort out by the 50-minute hour, on the couch. Over the years Andre Jordan, my doodling friend, has reminded me of more than just a few of my horticulturally induced regrets, including these:

SOMETIMES IT’S that we, ahem, overdid it just a tad (not that such a thing has ever happened to me).

A COROLLARY of overdoing it: when we buy more things than we can keep an eye on (especially in a dry year like this one, when you can practically hear the newly planted babies screaming across the yard for relief, and you can’t water fast or deeply enough).

I‘VE TRIED getting help; I have. Somehow, though, when that first seed catalog arrives in my mailbox, or spring springs at the garden center, I just can’t seem to control myself and I slip right back into my old ways.

I‘VE EVEN MADE LISTS and contracts with myself, promising to behave differently, to head off any possible regrets at the pass. But, no; it never quite helps–or if it does, the improvement in my bad behavior is short-lived. (Note to Andre: I do manage to wash regularly, thank you very much.)

OF COURSE, some of our garden regrets have nothing do do with plants whatsoever–unless you count the juniper berries in that third gin martini, or the agave in that margarita, or the hops in one too many beers. I regret misbehaving in all these ways, I truly do–but the likelihood of my acting differently in seasons to come? Slim to none (well, I don’t drink, but as for stopping plant excesses…).

And you?