Let’s Landscape

Have any of you ever tried your hand at landscaping? It’s tricky. I’ve done a lot of it in my time, and I can tell you from first-hand experience that it’s pretty easy to screw up. You have to know what you’re doing, and that is precisely where I ran into trouble. I didn’t. The honest truth is I did as much re-landscaping as I did landscaping before I finally got the hang of it.

In the beginning, I always jumped into my landscaping projects with great enthusiasm. I would head outdoors with all kinds of motivation, certain that by the time my project was completed, I would have one of those Better Homes and Gardens looking yards. I never did quite hit that mark. I’m not sure what made me think I could given all of those huge, gaping holes in my knowledge base and level of experience with what I was attempting to accomplish. My expertise was seriously lacking when it came to horticulture in general. I thought that you could just stick things in the ground, and they would grow. Wrong. I put plants in the sun that needed shade. I put plants in the shade that needed sun. I crammed too many bushes in some areas and not enough in others. I over watered. I under watered. I didn’t mulch. And worst of all, what did survive required so much maintenance that I ended up working myself to death trying to keep everything looking half way decent.

It was years before I began to get a handle on it, but I eventually did, and my yard is pretty much done now. I even get a compliment on it once in a blue moon. It may not quite meet my original unrealistic expectations, but I think it’s presentable. I’ll take it.