Flax and Follow thru and Florida Bound

Thursday, Rose will be here in the morning and we will take off for the train into the city. 

YAY!!! 

I cannot wait to spend time with an articulate gardener. At the show at Navy Pier, I will be surrounded by thousands of them!! 

No offense to neighbors and non-gardening friends, but this is the time of year that I find myself repeating the same phrases over and over. 

Cut it back. Cut it back. Cut it back.

Wait till it flowers. Wait till it flowers.
Don't cut the foliage. Please leave the foliage. WHY DID YOU CHOP OFF THE TULIP'S FOLIAGE???

In our neighborhood, most plantings are 5-6 years old and they haven't been touched since my neighbors put them in when they built the house. Spirea are reaching the middle of windows, (why spirea are planted as foundation plants, I will never know....), and the perennials are flopping over, begging to be divided.
Does this happen to you?
The neighbors ask you over and have you walk around the yard. They begin asking your advice on this and that, why my grass isn't thick like yours and what should I do with this thicket of pampas grass that I planted in front of the window???
I give my honest opinion, cut this back, move this, when the forsythia flowers, apply $100. worth of crabgrass prevention.
But they never do any of it. I found myself walking another neighbor's yard yesterday, telling her to cut the Knock-outs down to 6" and apply a fertilizer. It is the same thing I told her last year. She didn't do it then and she won't do it now.
In August, she will come down again, her rose bushes devastated by beetles and heat and lack of feed, she will beg me for answers.
Like anything else, I honestly believe success in gardening is dependent on the follow thru. Thinking about winter sowing is one thing. Making a list, purchasing seed, stockpiling soda containers and soil less mix is another thing.
But actually scooping the mix into containers, planting the seeds and getting the containers outside behind the junipers, in January, is the follow thru.

I'm not perfect by any means. Certainly, I have been guilty of being a big talker, proclaiming all the big things I am going to tackle.
But I have red and blue flax sprouting in winter sowing containers behind the junipers. Along with English Daisy and several other perennials.
It still remains to be seen if I can continue to keep the containers watered and remember to open their lids in the morning and close them at night. That is the follow thru, my friends!!

After a long and exhaustive and expensive search, the Darling has decided on her college. She will play volleyball for Florida Tech. In my wildest dreams, I had never imagined she would play volleyball in college. But it was always in my plan for her to lead us back to the southeast.
I would like to thank you all for all your kind wishes. This summer will be a difficult one, The Boy has taken a position in Richmond, VA, leaving for Europe immediately after graduation and then on to Virginia, and the Darling will leave us in August for her college career.
That will leave the Hubs and I alone with Gracie the Yorkie.
I'd better stock up on waterproof mascara. I have a feeling I'm gonna need it.....