Not Quite Mrs. Green Thumb

Early in the Spring, I announced that I had decided to grow a lilac - not on my person, but in my yard.  Just the mention of lilac was enough to send Checkered into convulsions as he remembered a former lilac of ours.  It grew without restraint and I avoided it simply by not going on that side of the house.  So my memories of it differ vastly from Checkered's. We eventually sold the lilac and the house it obscured and moved to a flowering shrubless yard.

When I saw the ad for a reblooming lilac and the promised continual and large blooms, it was pay day so my restraint meter was perhaps a little lower than one might hope, and I was soon the owner of a microscopic lilac.

Since my farming venture last year produce maybe five tomatoes and a dozen ears of corn, I decided to forego that grand scheme this year and the lilac found a new home in the abandoned 3 x 5 foot plot.

It went in and then I forgot it for a month minute, and by the time I remember that I owned a lilac plant, it was lost in a forest of thriving weeds.  I was tempted to leave the weeds to their folly since they danced nicely in the wind and since Pepper and the neighbor dog seemed to enjoy snacking on them. 

The next day, as my neighbor surreptitiously and continually glanced at my weed ocean, I was overcome with guilt and handled it just as I handle any other pressure:  I ate lots of ice cream and went to bed at 8, hoping things would resolve themselves by the next morning.

That policy worked beautiful until yesterday when Checkered and our kids were all out working in the yard and I was forced by reason of guilt to do something about the weeds before Checkered used the weed-whacker on them and my $23 plant.

By virtue of sweat, and with my posterior pointed at my neighbor's house - so much easier than actually kneeling - I weeded and sweated and weeded.  Since ice cream and early sleep didn't make my weeds disappear, I rolled out weed barrier and spread mulch.

And now, may I introduce you to my reblooming lilac?

 With any luck, it will grow beyond  its current three inch height and will give Checkered something to anguish over in years to come.