Gardening, NOT Ants, on my Mind

Seed catalogs arrive daily and I mark up pages, add up columns and generally salivate over new offerings.  I don't have room for a vegetable garden (unless I traded the front lawn for it which I will not do, much to my husband's chagrin), but I have flower beds tucked everywhere I can tuck.The only thing that likes my flower beds more than me are slugs and ants, which I battle every year.

Slugs are just plain gross and I couldn't bring myself to touch one if my life depended on it. One year my granddaughter, Hannah, was picking them off plants for me until she discovered that they leave a glue that no amount of soap and hot water can get rid of. I showed the grandkids about pourings salt on them, but then watched in horror one day and a slug that was all but dissolved pulled out a new body from the slime and went on to eat my columbines. All those piles of salt had done was kill the grass in round spots. Thankfully, last summer was very dry and I was able to call a truce with the few I saw.

Ants love our property.  We have huge carpenter anthills in the lawn and flowerbeds and I haven't found too many things that will deter them. They thought the ant granules we bought for them were "to die for!", ate it and asked for more. I gave them cornmeal because I heard they couldn't digest it, but after three cans of the stuff all I noticed were fatter corn-fed ants. We spray stuff on them that would kill a moose and they think it's a shower just for them. Fortunately, they are so well taken care of outdoors that we see very few indoors. Those I just step on.

Anyway, on to gardening.  I worked diligently last fall in my flower beds getting them ready for spring, and although I was too broke to put in new bulbs, I dug some of my tulips, hyacinth and daffodils up and separated them.  I had too many daffodil bulbs so I put them out beside my driveway with a "free daffodils" sign and they were gone in ten minutes. I wonder if anyone would like free ants or slugs...

We have lived in this home fore over 25 years and I have been working on the flower beds since day one. I'm not too loyal to some things though; I have a 20 foot Colorado Blue Spruce that I planted when it was six inches tall, and it's coming down this year, to be replaced with a Harry Lauder Walking Stick Tree. A few years ago a Pin Oak was replaced by a pair of White Birches.  My Magnolia has been moved three times, and it is a true miracle that it still is not only alive, but beautiful in the spring.  I want a white one too, but I don't know where to put it.

February.  I can't even start seeds because we go away for three weeks next month. I have a small greenhouse that is now visible above the glacier in the side yard and it's one of the first things I head for when I get home from vacation. I spend a lot of April and May out there. I love the smell and the dirt under my fingernails. Everyone should have their own greenhouse; there is no better place to solve the problems of the world.