When we moved almost two years ago, I had no intention of working outside.  I’d been married for 50 years and never had to tend a garden.  The problem was, we ate most of our meals on the screened porch overlooking the previous owner’s flower garden.  It wasn’t too bad the first summer, but the next season it was a mess.  I had to look at it, sometimes three times a day.  I was told all I had to do was to keep the weeds down, but how would I know what was weed and what wasn’t?  They don’t come out of the ground with tags saying, “Pull me.”

I began going out there, discarding what I thought looked ragged.  I had the loyal support of three master gardeners, two of them right next door.  If they had a mission of making me into a gardener, they had an uphill fight.  I doubt I’ll ever consider myself a real garden woman, but I’m beginning to wonder.  We had been away from home for six days.  Within one hour of unpacking the car, I found myself in the garden dead-heading the roses and looking hopefully to see if any of the seeds I’d planted had sprouted.  Sounds like the gardening disease had gotten me.  Further, I was inordinately pleased to see leaves identifiable as four-o’clocks and nasturtiums.  It’s too late to return to my former state, isn’t it?