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For the past 2-1/2 years, I have been interested in gardening. I really do enjoy it and have all my friends fooled that I'm some sort of Master Gardener. But I'll let you all on a little secret--I'm not.
I have a terrible time remembering the names of my plants. I can, however, remember the names of all the kids that were in my Kindergarten class with me. It's not that I don't want to remember the names of my plants. I just can't. Maybe it's old age. I don't know. It would probably help if I bothered to stick the little plastic thingy with the plant's name in the ground next to it, but I don't.
I bought The Home Depot Planting Guide for Annuals, Perennial and Ground Covers. It was only $1! I was hoping it would help my identify my precious investments. Sometimes it does, often it doesn't. A friend of mine gave me Neil Sperry's Complete Guide to Texas Gardening book for my birthday. The Second Edition, even! I don't know who Neil Sperry is, but he must be famous here in the Lone Star state because according to his bio, he is Texas' best-known gardening expert and has also been named the top garden communicator in America by the American Association of Nurserymen. I've never heard of the AAN, but I don't think they would lie. Anyway, his book is very informative and has lots of pictures that even tell you what zone they grow best in. But a whole lotta good it's going to do me sitting on the floor of my Jeep (sshh! Don't tell anyone I drive a SUV!) with my kids stepping on it, right?
I've tried growing plants from seeds. Sometimes I'm successful, but mostly with wildflowers. I'm very bad about following directions on the packet. I just throw them in the dirt and forget to water them. Once I was totally convinced that I grew some columbine from seed in a pot. Then my friend told me it sure looked like basil. It even smelled like basil. Guess what? It was basil. I don't know how it got there. I've never planted basil in my life. And no, I don't save the seed packets so if a seedling finally does bloom, I have no idea what it is. I have asked Gwen on several occasions what my plants were. She tells me and then I quickly forget. I'm beginning to see a pattern here.
I have a bad habit of transplanting my plants also. I'll decide that a certain plant will look good somewhere else, or I'll plant something in a small bed without realizing how big it will get. Then I have to move it. Sometimes I'm lucky and it will survive. A lot of times, they don't. But that just gives me another reason to go to the nursery so I don't mind.
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