Maybe I’ve been watching too much Lost lately, but it’s starting to feel like I’m living in an alternate universe. It’s February in Florida yet the grass is brown, the trees are droopy, and the weather is still cold. My alternate self is weeding under the warm sun somewhere, munching on peas and peppers. But the real me has reaped five peas, no peppers and has zero interest in weeding with the temperature under 60 degrees. Weeding, no, but clipping, yes, because in my alternate universe Tim Burton has taken over the garden, and that’s why everything looks like this:
That used to be Jasmine. Looking at it makes me crave my clippers. I want to rid the garden of all its depressing brown overtones. My hands are shaking at the thought, but I need to control myself at least until next month. Although I cheated this morning, it was for good reason:
How could a beauty like this live and bloom amongst this pile of dead sticks standing?
And who wants to look at this every time you walk in or out of your house? It’s in this little space between our air conditioning unit and side door. The garden was placed there initially because it was such a drab area; I wanted to be greeted by something when coming and going. That’s just not what I had in mind. Since Tim Burton took over, the dried up stems have been screaming at me, “Just do it already, get out the clippers!” It was time. Here’s my after:
Ahhhhhh. I feel so much better now; I even found some hidden flowers amongst that deadening mess. Hopefully, this will hold me until March.
