Of Hastas and Hydrangeas

Hubby  cut 5 foot hydrangeas down to the nubs last fall and I did the same with the hastas. Neither of us has a clue what we’re doing in the yard. Not a clue.

He said he kept cutting despite my very clear and repeated attempts to “Stop. Stop now. This isn’t what you’re supposed to do. Stop. This isn’t going to work. Stop.” He says (and he says this like this is to his credit, like he’s been very clever in his analysis and also that he has summed up my yard persona perfectly): “I thought you were being lazy.  I thought you wanted me to stop because you just wanted to stop working in the yard.”

I’m all: Dude. You cut multiple 5 foot bushes down into the dirt. Dude.

On to the hastas. The first fall we were here the hastas got all brown at the end of the growing season. They looked like they needed my help. I had no one at hand to ask and besides I was trying to figure this out for myself. I figured: cut them back. So, after three years of cutting the hastas back drastically they are growing back slowly. Very, very, very slowly. As if to say: Yo, you hurt me here. I feel very stupid about this. I am determined to plant flowers around them. For this I am getting advice. Sound advice. I’m going to a woman at work named Breaks Into Song who took a stick, put it in a glass of water in her window at work and eventually it BLOOMED. I kid you not.

Of course, the only flowers I’ll consider are those that I can plant by shaking packets of seeds out over topsoil and watering for 10 days. Anything that requires me to get down on my knees in the dirt with my butt up in the air, well… There are good reasons to have a six-foot fence.

All winter I made the occasional — ok, I KNOW THIS IS WRONG — comment that broke down to: You killed the hydrangeas. I tried to stop you. I was right and you were wrong. You killed the hydrangeas. But sure enough, the hydrangeas are growing back up just fine and dandy. We did find one thing with the bushes cut down – we have a broken glass block window behind the bushes which we’ll have replaced.

This spring we are seriously contemplating some actual gardening. As in, move rocks around to make a little gardening space on the side of the house, plant things, and watch them grow. I’ll blog that if we can actually manage it beyond the vaguely planning things.

By the way? to the right? That’s FREDS! yard