Butt-crack Central

(Neighbors, shaking their heads in shock: "It all happened so fast, we just didn't see it coming...")

You know how when your stomach has gotten just a little bit bigger than it used to be, the waistband on your pants, not being able to encompass the generous flesh of your middle, slips down BELOW the roll? You know how, when you're gardening, and your pants are already kind of riding low because of this, and you bend over repeatedly to wrestle with piles of clay soil and you feel a slight breeze brush across the top of your ass? This just might explain the crowd that inevitably gathers behind you in silent awe.

This neighborhood of mine is very "respectable" so I feel it's my civic duty to stir things up a little. Give people something to talk about to bring them together. But if gazing at my generous butt crack failed to get tongues wagging, you can be sure the removal of a rhododendron will do the trick. But before you view my crime, please observe this rose. I hope to show pictures of it in all it's glory later in the season. See the buds on it? Hopefully they will survive the shock of transplant. This is a rare noisette called Kaiserin Friedrich which it took me a year to get. When we moved last year I left it in the very good care of my close friend Sharon who is an exceptional artist and a rose nerd, like me. Philip brought him home to me a couple of weeks ago.

Just when you thought you knew the depths of my geekiness, I get to surprise you once again. However much of a geek I appeared to be before, you must now estimate that I am, in actual fact, much worse than you thought possible. I have thirty or so roses right now. That seems like a lot of roses to most people. However, I didn't plant most of them myself, they were planted by the previous steward of this little lot, so they aren't the roses that I must have in my yard in order to feel good about life.

I do have a Double Delight, which I can spot in a yard at thirty paces. That makes me happy. You know the incense you can buy, if you're a hippie, (which I'm not) that smells like old garden roses? This rose smells like that. Intense rose scent. But here are some roses that I cannot face the rest of my life without:

Oklahoma- (weak stems but incredible size and scent)
Honor- (not much scent, but proud tall plant with stunning white flowers for the Shabby-Chic moments of my life)
Abraham D'Arby- amazing scent, enthusiastic blooming, cut flowers look great in antique tea pots
Frederick Mistral- the King of pink roses in my opinion, with heavenly scent, notice a theme developing? You know what my current collection of roses is largely lacking? I'll give you one guess.
Peter Mayle- for the shocking fuscia lipstick color that vibrates out of it's huge flowers
Madame Isaac Pereire- she's a little bit of a Camille, but I love her so much I'll give her a slow drip of laudanum if required.

In my garden my plants know me as "She who does not weed" or sometimes as "She who thinks we are human and will answer her stupid rhetorical questions" or even "She who withers us with views of her butt-crack". I am very popular amongst my plants. When I feel low, I go out there and mumble pathetically to myself sing beautiful Scottish ballads amongst the sylvan beauty of my "wild" garden.

And now, for the crime... This is a rhododendron, known around these here parts as "the best plant that was ever cultivated and must never be removed from a site once planted". Please believe that I love a rhodie or two. Really, I think they're so exciting and I'd be very sad not to have a dozen of these babies, but this one wasn't as "healthy" as it could be. What I really did was spare it anymore pain and anguish dying here in this scorching spot.

Don't you see that I had to do it? For it's own sake. I hate that hose, by the way. It's super stiff and was slapping all my starts around something fierce yesterday when I was trying to plant my newest herb garden. (That's what this has become.) In the very back I planted a Buddleia (Butterfly Bush), next to that I planted a Daphne bush, there are two roses: Kaiserin Friedrich and Rosamundi. I planted French and English lavender along the edge. In the middle I have planted sage, parsley, and oregano. I have a few more to plant there but I couldn't finish the job yesterday because I had to hide in my house after the show I gave the neighbors practically caused a riot in outrage. Because my neighborhood is very respectable. You can tell by the amount of Japanese Maples and Rhododendrons that have been planted in people's yards.

The abundance of meticulously cared for lawns is also a give away. My neighbors don't know it yet, but my front yard is going to become a wilderness of luxuriously long grasses. (What I'd like is to plant my front yard mini-orchard with a sea of wild flowers, but I kind of blew it for this year. You need to toss the seeds out in the fall.)

Well, Max is at Rex's house for a few hours, Philip is tending the store. So I get to clean the house and then step out into my garden to see if my blueberries really are dying from fertilizer burn or if they're going to live. It's gorgeous out there. It will probably be raining by the time I get out there, but who cares, I get to be by myself right now and clean to loud music.

Poor poor neighbors.