Gloom Day

     Let me share you with a gardener's nightmare. Imagine you are recovering from a knee surgery that keeps confined to either the bed, or the couch. Next, imagine you are having your roof rebuilt at the same time as your surgery and subsequent recovery, because the roofing company was three weeks late getting started. Imagine also that you have had repeated conversations with the roofing company about how much your garden means to you, and that all parties have agreed upon several designated "drop zones", in order to minimize damage. Now imagine that on the first day of construction that pallets of heavy roofing materials are deliberately unloaded into your garden beds, obliterating everything planted underneath, this so the delivery driver does not run the risk of getting fined by the city for blocking public right-of-way access, even though there are several people ready to unload the contents of the pallets instantaneously into designated staging areas. Now go back to that couch for a minute, and imagine lying there on your back, looking out your windows, as the accumulated debris of a 100 year old roof is allowed to rain down into your garden, with no regard as to the aforementioned drop zones, and at this point all you can do is close the blinds. This, my gardening friends, was my living nightmare.

     If there can be any bright spots in all of this, there were only a couple of things killed outright; the perennials may recover by next spring; I am now off the couch and walking without crutches; and I think we've gotten a good roof, but boy is the garden ugly right now.

Newly prostrate Crinum

Rhododendron x 'Red Ruffles'

Impatiens hybrida 'Fusion Glow Yellow'

Stipa tenuissima

Carex oshimensis 'Everillo'

Hosta 'Pineapple Upside-down Cake' 

Hydrangea macrophylla 'Amethyst'

Helleborus x hybridus 'Spring Promise Sally' and Ophiopogon nigrescens

Tricyrtis hirta

Not the Designated Drop Zone

     After seeing this, I highly recommend you visit Carol at May Dreams Garden, who hosts Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, where you can see gardens more uplifting.