farmer john

Yesterday a friend of mine who visits this blog regularly but NEVER COMMENTS came by with a gift. He has a lovely ivy plant in his apartment that I have always admired, and he gave me a meticulously grafted and lovingly potted daughter plant.

This plant will now take up residence in my office, next to my coffee plant that is my private joke with myself and my cyclamen that will never bloom because my office does not experience seasonal cycles.

Her name is Hannelore, after one of my favorite characters on Questionable Content:

We decided to take a field trip to the new garden center to see if we needed to spend any frivolous money on garden-y things, and what do you know! Turns out we did!

We discussed the various fertilizer needs of my various resident plants, none of whom had ever known the sweet touch of fertilizer yet. I bought a few different types, one in a hilariously large quantity that will last me for about a decade.

He helped me select a rake. Then he demonstrated its proper use to me.

I stood by, thinking this is a very good sort of friend to have. Must try not to piss this one off.

After he left, that rake, I did employ it.

I cleared away the winter debris from the beds that i now have in play, including my fabulously double-dug perennial bed, as seen last year:

And yesterday, post-raking:

and my heathers, now officially heathers and heaths, after the addition of two types of heaths late last summer:

my hardy lilacs, which will need much nursing along because of the non-limey soil I stubbornly planted them in:

my various bulbs, scattered willy-nilly across the yard:

my brave and noble clematis, whose year, like the Yankees, I firmly believe this is:

And of course the beach roses, who are thriving in the bed of soil that was burned to a crisp when that transformer blew and caused a high-voltage electrical fire that burned in our yard for over three hours:

I am afraid that this tree is dead and needs removal:

And speaking of removal, I have decided to go over my father's head and post this thing on Craigslist, since he is clearly not going to do anything about getting rid of it:

he lost the title years and years ago, and found out that it would cost more than the trailer is worth to pay all the overdue registration fees and such. When he found this out, his reaction was to sort of shrug and say, pretty much, well, that's that.

That's that? Dad, get this THING off my lawn. Or I will do it for you.

Editor's note:
I have received FOURTEEN responses to my Craigslist posting in the 45 minutes it has been up, ALL of them willing to take it off my hands TODAY. God, do I love the internet.
And, of course, I paid a visit to my grandmother's daffodils:

That was a fair bit of raking, all told, and today I bagged it all for the dump. Eleven bags in all.

And no, I still haven't cleaned the gutters.