The Gardeners Anonymous Blog

Thanksgiving

I am thankful for my family and my friends and the place that I live. These fill me with joy every day.

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Wake Up and Smell the Free Crepe Myrtle

Life can get us all down sometimes.

No matter how blessed and lucky we are, sometimes (especially with the current state of the economy) we get just plain sad.

Well I have been just plain sad. So sad that I haven’t even felt like gardening or blogging—or blogging about gardening.

But an act of generosity by a friend helped to snap me out of my funk and back into the garden,

My girlfriend Smitha is going through a home remodel and has had to tear up her entire garden. She had a beautiful crepe myrtle that was going to be destroyed so she asked me if I wanted it.

I said, “Yes!” My landscape guys removed it for me and planted it, and voila, a beautiful new tree.

During the tree wrangling process I started to pull weeds and cut back straggly plants and the next things I knew I was gardening again and all was right with the world.

Renew, reuse, recycle—rejoice.

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Another Bloomin’ Orchid

I still say that orchids are easy-peazy but I’m also very proud of myself lately because I have several orchids blooming at once—ones that have never bloomed before.

Here is the latest. I wish I knew what it was but, alas, it is one of my garage sale purchases and it came without a label. It is also extremely fragrant in a deep, earthy, musky, feminine sort of way.

The most important factor in growing orchids in your house is a good window with appropriate light.

 

Bubblegum Alley

My idea was to take my son on a little vacation, and spend some quality mom/son time with him before jr. high school.

And of course, I wanted to do activities that he liked. So, there were times during our three-day adventure when I ended up in places that I wouldn’t have chosen for myself.

Like Bubble Gum Alley.

Bubble Gum Alley is located between 733 and 734 Higuera Street in downtown San Luis Obispo, California. It’s pretty self-explanatory. But I’ll go ahead and explain it, even though when I think about it, I throw up in my mouth a little. It’s an alley 15-feet high and 70 feet long that is completely covered in multiple layers of chewing gum.

Used chewing gum.

Now to me, this “tourist attraction” would be way better if it was completely erased from my memory bank. But my son loved it, of course. He read about it and came prepared with two pieces of bubble gum, one for him and, gulp, one for me.


I dutifully chewed my piece of gum, as did my son. I bravely approached the alley, holding my breath, because if I had caught a wiff of some unexpectedly bad odor I’d have hurled on the spot.

I pulled the gum out of my mouth and attempted to stick it to the alley wall. I couldn’t get it to stick, so I started squealing and dancing around, not in a good way but in a manner very entertaining to my son.
I finally got it to stick and ran in the opposite direction from the alley.

 It was my son’s turn, and he seemed almost as disgusted as I was when it came right down to applying his gum to the wall. After the sticking ceremony was complete, I couldn’t wait to get away from that particular tourist spot.

And wash my hands.

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ROAD TRIP!

My youngest son is ten.

This is his last year in elementary school, and it’s parent/teacher conference week, with half days all week. What better week for a ROAD TRIP!

I won’t be able to do this next year. This is it, my friend. Next year is the dreaded, evil middle school—aka Jr. High.

Since someone has to stay home and take care of my older son and make the money, I need to go on the trip.

So, this car trip consists of my ten-year-old and me. I had originally planned to take him all the way to LegoLand, in San Diego, a place he’s always wanted to visit. But, because of a meeting that falls smack in the middle of the week (you know who you are) I had to shorten the trip.

And what was my son’s second choice—since he couldn’t go to Legoland? That’s right, you guessed it, The Madonna Inn.
 
What do you mean you didn’t guess The Madonna Inn?

Ten reasons why we like the Madonna Inn:

1. It’s located in one of the most beautiful parts of the country.
2. It’s located in one of the prettiest towns in California.
3. It has one of the best, brand-new heated pools anywhere.
4. In it’s restaurant, it has the greatest men’s room in the world.
5. Pink chenille bathrobes.
6. Every room has a different tacky theme that you will talk about for years to come.
7. None of those silly pillow top mattresses and fluffy pillows–It’s slabs of foam all the way baby.
8. It’s close to Pismo Beach.
9. It’s never crowded.
10. Really nice people work there.

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