The Garden Parties Without Me

We shy retiring types are usually thrown into something of a tizzy when our spouses accidentally forget to tell us that we're having a party in a few days. And we shy, retiring gardener types get thrown into an even bigger tizzy when we discover that it's a garden party!

You know how it goes - when someone comes to look at the garden we always feel like apologizing. Things like "You should have been here last week" or "Wait until next week when X starts really blooming," are practically a gardener's creed. The garden in the ground never lives up to that idea we have in our minds despite our best efforts. And if we know we're having a garden party we want to make all the best efforts possible to make that garden look party-worthy - if not perfect. (Although I gave up expecting that decades ago!)

But some years that is harder than others. Between severe drought and unusual heat this year's garden never looked quite as good as I even remember from previous years - much less did it live up to my ideal. Most of the old standard plants were still hanging in there, but the visions of grandeur I had at the start of the season were shattered rudely by lack of rain. In fact very few of the new plants that I put it made it through the summer unless I babied them specially. Babies need regular water and nourishment and can be fuss, preferring rain from above to that from my hose. So even the young survivors looked scrawny.

Still, looking things over I saw possibilities - a little raking and tidying, a lot of deadheading, maybe a game of musical plants to fill a few holes caused by the untimely deaths of super-thirsty plants. Perhaps I could hit the nursery and find a couple of things in spectacular bloom that would distract everyone from the rest. Perhaps I could. . . .

Perhaps I couldn't.

Because before I could even grab the snips to begin the easy part - the deadheading - dental disasters struck. The root canal from hell (currently in it's 7th office visit with two to go) decided to get infected, One day it was a toothache too severe to make deadheading and tidying seem like a good idea - and the next day I looked in the mirror and thought I'd grown a second head. I couldn't believe that skin could stretch over that much swelling. I also couldn't bear to inflict the sight of me on the general public. SO I stayed in burying my head under the covers.

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