Hi, I'm Kay and I'm a Flowerholic...

I am not making fun of people with addictions recovering or not. I am saying that I am one of you. I can not stop buying flowers and plants. I'm sure this seems funny but really it's true. Let me put in perspective the scope of my addiction. I have a yard that is about the size of a postage stamp, granted at the time we bought the house, the realtor boasted that it was one of the largest most regular lots in the neighborhood. To give you an accurate size, I'd say our house and yard take up about the same amount of space as your average McDonald's with parking lot. Not a play park McDonald's, just the plain restaurant with a drive through and enough space to park maybe 2o cars. Do you get it? I can't give you measurements, cause I don't know them and am no good at guesstimating. It's small, it takes us less than an hour to mow the lawn. Our house is about 1900 sq ft. including garage. Now that you have the size in your mind let me tell you I have managed to put in a total of 14 flower beds, 39 pots, 3 fruit trees, 4 rose bushes, and 1 twisted willow tree. And I want more!!! It started innocently enough. We put in a side fence to keep our little dog from running the neighborhood biting people. Our then nasty homeowner's association declared our fence ugly and wanted us to take it down as we were lowering property values in the neighborhood. This is another story. We declined to take down our fence but did agree to plant some things around it to camoflage it. So it began. We bought four pampass grasses, and one climbing rose. In just one short growing season these managed to completely cover the fence. Success! Sadly, our little dog died and we no longer needed the fence. However, since I am an evil, vindictive person I did not want to take the fence down, instead we bought an above ground pool and put it in the fence area. I bought some large and small flower pots and embellished the pool with lovely potted plants. We had our own little pool oasis! Sadly, our pool was destroyed in some 80mph winds. Still I did not feel enough compassion for our homeowner's association to take down the fence. Instead my daughter and I embarked on the most glorious garden ever. With wip in hand we made boyfriend build us five raised garden boxes. We made our own garden dirt and studied many gardening books. In the end we decided on companion planting and container gardening. We spent the next few weeks buying and planting tomatoes, onions, peppers of all kinds, marigolds, zinnias, lavender, parsley, thyme, basil, lemon balm, rosemary, garlic, mint, spearmint, sunflowers, vincas, and creeping jasmine. In the pots we planted mandevilla vine, hybrid geraniums, assorted sedums, hens and chicks, moss roses, a banana tree, coleus, more vincas, some white flower things and some blue flower things. In addition to all of this we encouraged the growth of a wild passion flower vine and planted another rose bush outside the fence area. We kept telling ourselves that when we finished this "side yard" garden we would stop and just enjoy it. We would spend a few early morning hours a few times a week tending it and then be ready to go to the beach for the rest of the day. We moved here after all to worship the beach not to work hard in the yard. Our obsession with the "side yard" garden continued. We even asked for suggestions from friends and family for names for the garden. It was such a special place that we couldn't keep calling it the "side yard" garden. We created art just for the garden, we bought garden stepping stones, made spider webs from beads, used discarded items for garden ornaments and had husband rig up a fancy watering system. We have toyed with calling it many things including, "Where the Wild Things Grow," and "The Pot Field." No name as of yet has been determined. This flurry of activity was not enough for me however. Like the true addict that I am, I realized that I couldn't stop with the side yard. I must improve the existing flower beds and patios. I have added, pruned, dug up, transplanted and gotten more dirt under my finger nails in the last month than most people get in a life time. I think that most people would say enough. It looks nice, it will grow and mature, all good things will come in time. But not me. I look at the garden and see more possibilities. I can not go grocery shopping without stopping in the garden center for more ideas and a flower or two. I work at an actual job two days a week. Between my home and my work are two garden centers. I stop most days on my way home and come home with on average four more plants. I can't stop. I am surrounded by enablers, husband loves flowers. Plus husband has mentality of more is more. If you like peanut butter and are out of peanut butter, you should go to store immediately to buy peanut butter, not one jar, but two, maybe four jars, so that you never run out of peanut butter, when you get down to one jar, maybe two, you buy more peanut butter... Daughter has same addiction as me and encourages co-dependancy. Grandson likes to periodically step on, pick or otherwise destroy flowers, requiring purchase of more flowers to replace them. Next door neighbors have equally beautiful gardens, must keep up with the neighbors. Homeowners association has rules about where you can grow vegetables in your yard, must continue to piss off homowner's association by just skirting inside the rules. So you see, my addiction. I have forgone all sense of sensibility. I have only been to the beach twice this spring. I have not spent any money on cute new summer clothes or shoes. I have not spent any money on grandchildren. I have neglected friends. I haven't bathed my dogs or treated them for fleas yet this spring. My bedroom hasn't been vacuumed in a week. I go to sleep thinking of one more hanging basket. Tonight when I pulled into my driveway, I smiled. My little patch of earth is beautiful. It brings happiness to me and my family. I am going to the beach tomorrow. I am having breakfast and dinner with friends. Who knows, I might even go shopping the next day for the grandbabies.