Start Gardening With Something Dead and You Won't Be Disappointed

Laura Breck

We live in a condo downtown, but we have a little dirt area surrounding our patio where we have plants. When we moved it, it was filled with a grungy collection of scratchy, overgrown perennial bushes that baffled me.

A few years ago, one of our neighbors suggested we rip it all out and start a rock garden. We tugged out the miscellaneous shrubberies and offered them to friends who have much more room for bushes.

We drove our SUV to the local landscape nursery and weighed in. (You drive onto a huge scale as you enter and they record the weight of your vehicle.) We spent hours cruising through the rock section. It's amazing how many different kinds of rocks there are for landscaping. We chose a stratified red and brown rock and spent another hour picking through the pile for just the right chunks. (Yes, we brought gloves, thankfully.)



The rock we chose is evidently very upscale as well as very heavy because when we re-weighed the truck on the way out, it cost over a hundred dollars for seven basketball-sized pieces of rock. There went our budget!

The next stop was at the garden center's perennial plant area. We looked at all the beautiful ground cover offered but when we added up the price for the number of plants we needed, it wasn't in the budget.

Until we found a discount table full of Dead Nettles. Hubby laughed, and said, "These you couldn't kill. They're already dead."

Ha ha. He's SO funny. Yes, I'm a plant killer. Not proud of it, but when greenery looks at me, it sees the grim reaper.

The plants were pretty. Variegated leaves and the promise of delicate white, pink, or purple flowers. Sold! We loaded up a couple boxes and got out of there for under fifty dollars. And with a shrug, we admitted that if they didn't work out, we could always replace them with something more expensive next year.

Six years later, we love them!

The cheap little plants have grown beautifully around the expensive rocks. They flower at various times during the summer. Our lawn care person even commented on how nice they are. And the best part is - they're alive!!!

So, the grim reaper of gardening has found her perfect match.

I'd love to hear what your favorite plant is, and why.

Happy Saturday!

Laura

LauraBreck.com
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