The State of the Garden

Thanks for all the emails from individual readers about "Hawaiian Delight." No one wanted to write an actual comment, for some reason. My husband wrote a comment but I deleted it for complicated reasons. That's OK, dear, right? If you want to critique my transitions, you can just come downstairs, no?

Dear readers, blogging has languished because I've making big plans for the garden. The best part so far has been paying someone else to clear out all the old leaves and branches. All gone in one day, and ready for mulch. This was much better than me fiddling with the chipper for weeks on end and creating a possible Fargo situation. (Fargo is to "chipper" as Psycho is to "shower." Sort of. Well, not really. Never mind.)

So far I've planted some "Asiatic" lily bulbs around the sundial in the back yard. I made a little circle around them with broken bits of slate from the patio, which made me feel terribly clever. I also have white and pink "Oriental" lilies, which are somehow different from "Asiatic," that I need to plant somewhere, and sedum. I also got seeds for planting in the "children's garden" in the back, sunflowers, nasturtiums, white "dahlia" zinnias, radishes (John thought they'd be successful), marigolds. I'm starting some multicolor morning glory seeds indoors soon to transplant by the fence in back.

Oops, I just remembered that my neighbor Hazel thinks morning glories are pesty invasive vines. She was none too pleased when our Evil Bamboo Thicket, eradicated two years ago via the local nursery's Bobcat, sent out a couple posthumous runners under the fence to her yard. My question for the Internet is: Am I ethically bound to ask her if I can plant morning glories by the fence? If so, then does that mean she is ethically bound to cut down the rest of her arborvitae that have had their top branches all cut off, and are standing there, limbless and tragic, looming darkly over the future home of the "children's garden" like giant tombstones?

We're having a huge load of mulch delivered on Monday. Maybe Hazel will be so pleased that we do give a rat's ass about the garden, after all, that she won't take offense at the morning glories. Hazel has a barking Pomeranian and an annoying bright movement-detector light that shines in our bedrooms. So we have morning glories, it's live and let live, right? As long as the morning glories don't poop in her yard or leave cigarette butts in her strawberry patch, I think we're cool.