Gardening in The South: rake, heap, throw

Just thought I'd give you a picture of gardening in The South. Y'know, just in case you're not sleepy yet...

First off, there's the subtle distinction between landscaping and gardening. Landscaping requires boots, and gardening can be done in sneakers. If you're doing it in heels, we call it "picking flowers". In The South, of course, those rules bend a little, since we rarely wear shoes if we can help it. I mean, sheesh, there are no rocks, so that danger is minimal. Of course, the fire ants will swarm up your leg and wait for the chemical signal to sting all at once. And they WILL, too. But I digress.

What I'm doing is gardening, only I'm doing it in fuscia crocs. Now, technically, what I'm doing isn't gardening. No one really gardens this far south, they just kill the plants they don't want. Normally, this is called "weeding"; I prefer the term "herbal warfare". But again, I digress.

If you plant something that isn't native to this area, it dies, usually a terrible death of fungus, mold, drought, root rot, or from being eaten by insects -- sometimes all at once. This year, my tomatoes died from: septoria spot, tomato horn worms, drought, and some kind of moth that lays its eggs in the green tomatoes so that when the eggs hatch, the larvae eat the tomato from the inside out. But I digress.

This weekend, I exfoliated my yard. The Pest Control Guy told me to get ALL the plants off the outside walls of my house. We were getting too many earwigs in the house, so I figured he was probably right. I worked my way around the house, trimming anything in my path. Lean, cut, throw, lean, cut, throw, rake, heap, throw. Then I took out last year's vegetable garden. Rake, pull, lift and fold the irrigation system, rake, smooth, rake, heap, throw. Then I took down the jasmine that's climbing the may haw. Cut, pull, untangle, pull, clip, apply tourniquet, trim, rake, heap, throw. You get the picture.

Then I had to fix the sprinkler system. Oh sure, other people pay professionals, but that requires too much effort for me. I finally figured out how to get a narrow strip of land (like a path or right-of-way) watered. You get a sprinkler head (any shape) and change out its nozzle with the magical one of the right shape! Yeah, you'd think I'd catch on to that one earlier. You'd also think that they'd just make all the configurations we needed without making us buy two sprinklers. But there you have it. Buy parts, dig up the old ones, change them out, test, repeat.

Then there was the picket fence. *sigh* Get out the bleach, TSP, pump sprayer, and pressure washer. Trim the hedges around the fence, pull the weeds under it, set up the sprayer and washer. (Did I mention it's only 17' on both sides of the house, some of which is still covered with jasmine?) Clip, pull, rake, heap, throw, spritz, spray, dismantle the broken fence, make mental note to yell at lawn guys. "Unlatch gate, THEN push."

So, now I'm in the recliner, about to join Team Advil, feeling happy that I get to spend most of tomorrow in the car, sitting down, for my weekly trip to The Big City. If anyone drops anything tomorrow, I can no longer reach the floor, so they're going to have to pick it up themselves. Like that's going to happen. Rake, heap, throw.