As winter sputters to a final close, I love planning for spring. Spring cleaning, in my case, is just throwing away everything I meant to throw away all winter. Switching from my daily uniform of jeans and a sweater to wildly different cropped jeans and a sweatshirt. Putting away the cumbersome coats and opening up the windows for the freshest of air. Getting the yard ready to spend every nice moment outside after spending so many months inside.
However, I am a terrible gardener. I’m not exaggerating or being self-deprecating or trying to be cute. I’m truly the worst gardener. I kill plants that are tagged “easy care” and “low maintenance.” I should work for the growers as a quality control agent because I think they’d be surprised by my talents at killing even the hardiest varietals. And my talent knows no limits. I can kill outdoor and indoor plants. I’m very versatile.
As a fresh-faced 26-year-old homeowner, my mother-in-law once gave me the following gardening tip. If it is painful to yank out, it’s likely a weed. If it pulls easily and almost accidentally, that’s a plant you wanted to preserve. As it turns out, it doesn’t matter in my situation. I have a special gift for turning perennials into annuals and everything into garbage.
A close friend of mine is a master gardener. For real. She has things started from seed right now with special lights and pristine labels, and everything organized into neat rows like tiny soldiers. When it is temperature-safe to transplant them, her garden will be lush with healthy plants, and my friends and I will visit her garden AS AN OUTING and marvel at her diligent work and impressive yield.
I, on the other hand, will use my typical method of going to my local garden center filled with hope and inexplicable self-confidence and spend hundreds of dollars choosing plants based on whims. I like orange. A lot. I like pretty things. I love fresh herbs. I’ll grab a few full-sun plants and plant them in partial sun. Every spring, I’m on some bewildering plant shopping spree that I have no business going on. Then I’ll spend two days turning the soil over and wiping my brow and carefully placing annuals and perennials at random and mixing up fertilizer and staking tender shoots. I’ll be wearing a hat, and from a distance, I will look like THE Martha Stewart if Martha wore fifteen-year-old t-shirts to plant things. I’ll take many stunning photos of all of my efforts and post them on Instagram.
And then, I will host a slow ninety-day funeral for the very same plants, saying goodbye to one after the other. I will not post that on Instagram.
By the second week of August, my neighbor, also a very talented gardener, will tell me I can’t “give up yet” because it is only August. But I can. And I will. Because it’s my yard and my tradition. By August, I just want to sip iced tea and enjoy the sun on my face with a book in my hand. I will have adopted a “just let nature be nature” stance except for mosquitoes, which I will swat with enthusiasm. My spring gardening energy will be a distant memory, and I will conveniently forget the cost of all the plants and mentally file the expense under the “entertainment budget.”
Lately I really have loved to read about people who are growing their own food in urban settings. These people inspire me when they talk about growing large amounts of vegetables and fruits and living farm-to-table with skyscrapers in the background. They will eat abundantly all summer and then can things to enjoy all winter. I’m beyond impressed. It’s not going to happen in my yard. We would starve and starve quickly. So, I settle on a few cherry tomato plants and fresh herbs. And if they grow, it’s because they thrive on neglect, and my neighbor not so secretly watering them.
But as I wait for the thaw…it’s all possibilities now. I ordered seed catalogs because I am, if nothing else, an optimist. I look forward to selecting all of the special things I will kill.
Jen Fortner is a freelance writer who enjoys asking friends and strangers far too many questions. She spends her spare time sitting in inclement weather watching youth sports, traveling, cooking, and searching for the very best baked goods. She lives in Shorewood with her husband, three children and the most spoiled dog.