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I have this theory that people don't see plants. They know they are there enough to avoid smashing into trees or bushes, but for some people all plants just kind of look the same. This has to be true because every growing season, on several occasions, I discover my garden has been trampled on by a human. It's always the same spot too. Tucked away in the corner against the wall and beside the staircase. People like to go there to urinate due to the privacy. I've come around the corner of my building on several occasions and witnessed it firsthand. I'm not making this up.
Yesterday I came home to find my Bleeding Heart that looked so good that morning, was at least half destroyed. It was big, but someone had managed to completely overlook it and step all over it. You are thinking, this must be a pretty crappy looking garden filled with weeds. How could people mistake it for a good place to pee? But I tell you it has Ferns, Astilbe, Pine Geraniums, Violets, Peppermint, Hostas and the Bleeding Heart. It's a garden. I dug it up several years ago. I put mulch on it and compost in it. I pick the constant stream of Big Mac™ wrappers, beer cans, plastic bags, and waxed soft drink cups out of it. I water it throughout the summer. I'd swear it looks like someone has being doing something purposeful there for a while now.
Two years ago, my landlord hired some guy to mow the tiny patch of grass in front of the garden. Not the "bathroom garden", but the big one that spans the length of the building I live in. Well he certainly must have thought that lavender and thyme and various other herbs looked an awful lot like grass. He also thought that all the plants growing inside the brick border looked like grass too. And that green stuff growing amongst rocks and covered with wood chips. That must be grass too. He mowed everything in sight with that weed wacker.
I don't have a point to this so there is no conclusion. Every time this happens I say I have given up. I say I will never bother again. But the sad truth is I like having that patch of dirt to dig in. Even if I have to pick up garbage and dog crap every day. Even if I waste time and money every year on plants that are completely destroyed by people who think plants make good holders for proping up half-empty big beer cans they can't finish. Even if I have to learn my lessons about human nature the hard way over and over again.
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