Perfect Grass Guy

A Bleeding Heart Grows Out of a Rock--volunteer

Pennsylvania Sedge. This is the cutest thing I've ever seen. 

He will grow up to eat entire hosta plants. I love him anyway. 

Impulse Purchase at Byerlys.  

A plant you once trusted, wild ginger, starts to make herself invasive. Hmmmm. Better than weeds. 

Down the street there is a man with a postage stamp yard--one small rectangle--where he keeps his grass perfect. He has torn it up and reseeded eleven times in the last three years. I guess the dandelions keep coming back. I don't get it, and the boulder in the middle does not inspire me. I shouldn't judge, maybe there is virtue in keeping something small and PERFECT.  Except that I'm sure it takes a boat load of chemicals to do it. . .

To keep up with him I am going to do better with the weeds in my yard and maybe then the seeds won't blow down the street and make him have to round up the whole thing and start over. Again.

However, this brings me to the age old question. Should I keep my life small and perfect or live large with some moderate flailing?  Actually it's probably too late for that question.

Posted at the yoga studio: How you do anything is how you do everything. I've wasted many a pose wondering how I feel about that saying.

New this year to the spring garden is the experience of the "spark of joy" from the the Japanese Art of Decluttering and Tidying. The Life Changing Magic of Tidying and Decluttering.  Certainly we must apply these happy principles to the garden as well as the home.  (Not that I have succeeded inside. . . but I made good progress and it kept me happy all winter.)

My hours in the garden often amount to triage in the emergency room--stuff I've got to take care of or somebody's going to die. Kidney stones. Heart attacks. Like transplants needing water or an invasion of Japanese beetles--you got to do it today. . .

I long for the day when everything is settled and I can just meander around and pluck a few blossoms and get that one remaining dandelion before it blows down the street and causes a town council meeting.

Is this true? Is that what I really want? Maybe if it was all done I'd be ready for a new garden. Or maybe by then I'll be so old I'll peacefully drift away to that garden in the sky.

In the spirit of the spark of joy, instead of a perpetual "do-to" list in the garden this summer--I'm going to remember that it is really a "want to do" list. This is a hobby. That I love. Obsessively. Remember.

Maybe the answer to the age old question is whatever you do it mindfully. I could mindfully tend my ten rose bushes and 4 x 8 foot perennial garden like I did at the town-house years ago, and pick off every bug and pull every weed and give each plant the exact recipe of fertilizer that it needs. Or I can mindfully triage 3/4 of an acre and make sure the actual plants that I love the most die another day.

So, perfect grass guy, good luck this year. I hope it works for you and as you sit on the tailgate of your pickup truck watching your perfect grass grow I hope it makes you happy. I'm serious.

I'll keep chasing the deer off and spraying repellent at 11:00 p.m. because I saw that look in their eyes standing so peacefully on the hill. . .

I made my decision--I'm living large. How I garden does not have to be a reflection of how I play the piano or teach or parent or do yoga. Out there I can mindfully flail. Even a weedy, deer threatened, (not going to tell you why there aren't any rabbits this year), overgrown in some areas and under-grown in other garden--still gives me a spark of joy.