strawberry moon

that's what the moon's called in june, or so says michael lutin. i looked it up in an almanac. it could be called "rose moon," too.

i got s to plant a rose in the yard. it's a radrazz knockout rose, which is disease resistant, and it was no mean feat. s deeply resented our previous garden at the first rowhouse because i forced him to plant everything and then neglected it utterly, leaving him to dust it for blackspot and prune it, etc.

not so with this garden. i had a cold while he was digging the bed (at the height of the swine flu hysteria -- it figures -- as a practicing medical hobbyist i was spending hours each day on the WHO website and then i got sick on top of it. the secret, in practice? discuss.) but i still went out there and planted everything. p is garden crazy, she supervised all the planting. she'll end up working in management if she's not careful.

the point is, i love my garden incredibly. possibly more than my cats. i am constantly deadheading every single plant and fussing over it like a mother hen. i am adding a container of this and a container of that. i am making s put lime on the hydrangea (which is in a container -- i couldn't convince him to dig another hole.) the only reason why we have a bed in the first place this year, though, is because p wanted it. i could have a limb hanging by a thread and if p wanted s to cross a minefield to obtain a small shriveled balloon for her, well, i hate to say this but i would shuffle off this mortal coil waiting for him to return. it's nice to know she's daddy's little girl.

so my garden kicks ass. of course, this is rowhouseland, so like an entire mcdonald's bag of refuse will blow down from the street and lodge itself between the snapdragons and the kale, but it makes it more authentic somehow. all the trash in the neighborhood lands on my lawn regardless of whether there is wind or not and it remains there until i remove it (or get s to do it for me -- i dislike touching trash, it gives me OCD.) and planted amidst the dianthus and lavender are now nine garden gnomes engaged in various pastoral occupations.

i LOVE gnomes. various people in my life could vouch for this. ala saw a magnet at spencers of all places that reminded her of me which read: "hangin with my gnomies." i think they're alive. it's not just hallucination. my newest one which i got from kmart for mother's day is riding a snail. i do not know where he is going on the snail but for right now he's on the bottom step on the flight by the door and it will likely take him the rest of the summer to get to the railing by the sidewalk.

here is the welcome mat i purchased several weeks ago:



no one gets it, or if they have, no one commented. one guy still tried to sell us an alarm system. actually, he said it was free but the monitoring was $49.99 a month.

i noticed my neighbors went beyond the usual marigolds this year and planted some color, perhaps inspired by my rococo assortment of vegetation all crammed in one little bed and 29 containers (plus the rose area). peer pressure? possibly. because you know i haven't buckled and gotten the animatronic disney yuletide figures that can be seen flinging their little lamps from space.