Green Garden

I have always been fascinated by green flowers. It's just not a "normal" color for a flower. Leaves and stems are supposed to be green. Flowers are not. I've been growing green zinnias since I was a child. A few years ago, I started growing Bells of Ireland not because it was green but because I have fond memories of it in gardens I had enjoyed in my youth. The idea to combine the two and start an all-green garden is not mine. I "borrowed" it from a fellow gardener.

I cleared out a quadrant of the purple garden (it is circular) and planted some old friends and some new ones. I started in the early spring with a green miniature hybrid tea rose that I had ordered on impulse from a catalog. I don't know what possessed me. I have a real talent for killing hybrid tea roses. Maybe I thought that if I killed this one, it would only be a small mistake instead of a full-sized mistake. The rose arrived in the mail while I was desperately ill with the flu and there was still snow on the ground. I watered it well and put it in my front window which gets the afternoon sun. The rose flourished. It even developed buds. Then I planted it outside. It immediately threatened to die. So far it has only been a threat. The little rose is still among the land of the living, but looking very sad. Obviously it is longing to be back in its cozy window.

Today I planted Green Wizard rudbeckia, Lime Green tobacco, Envy zinnias, Bells of Ireland, Lady's Mantle, Green Apple columbine, Hens and Chicks and Bistro Lettuce. Don't ask me to explain the lettuce. It was temporary insanity. We all know that I can't grow actual food.

By the way, that sounded easy, didn't it? It wasn't. I transplanted about fifty cosmos seedlings, one at a time, into their proper "cosmos spot", moved a dozen asters into the "aster quadrant", relocated three columbines and dug out all the weeds that had infested this portion of the purple garden. Then, and only then, was I able to sow all my seeds.

Water well and try not to think about the hell that awaits me in the purple garden tomorrow.