THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 3, 1996 TAG: 9603010225
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: Ronald L. Speer
LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines
For gardeners and folks who love flowers, this is the time of year when all things seem possible.
Last year is ancient history, and we shrug aside the fact that the 15 tomato plants we set out last spring and nurtured lovingly for months didn't produce enough fruit to make a single salad.
We forget that we picked the wrong flowers for the boxes around the deck, and the time and money spent hoping for a dazzling burst of color wound up wilting in the blistering sunlight, despite the water and the fertilizer we poured on them.
We forget that the 100 asparagus roots we carefully positioned in a well-designed trench started off just fine and then disappeared in the weeds when we grew tired of tilling them in the summer sun.
We forget that the weeds were hardier than the strawberry plants we foolishly counted on to keep the entire family in fresh fruit throughout the summer.
We forget the vow we took to never again order plants from a far away nursery because they were bred for a different soil and a different season, and may not thrive here.
History doesn't man much to those of us who list Johnny Appleseed and Luther Burbank as America's greatest heroes.
Forget the past. Dream of the future.
Dream, for instance, of a six-foot tall row of Freedom Heritage Roses, proclaimed by the Spring Hill catalog as a ``miraculous breakthrough! A low-care, spectacular rose hedge!''
That's just the ticket to line the side of our homesite and shut off the sight of the felled trees and debris of an untended vacant lot. Seventy feet of towering rose bushes that even with no care ``flourish in drought and deluge!''
In the back, maybe, a couple of dozen Giant Hardy Hibiscus that the Gardener's Choice catalog promises will thrive ``with masses of flowers, each measuring an astonishing 10 inches across.''
Wow!
That would knock the socks off envious neighbors who are poring over their catalogs with the same dreams of turning their yards into dazzling displays that would be the envy of the folks at the Elizabethan Gardens.
I've already ordered a dozen Lemon Lollipop Lillies that my own paper says will provide a burst of yellow from June until the first frost. I figure they are a sure thing. Would The Virginian-Pilot lie, or stretch the truth? No way.
Last fall I accepted as pure fact a report in the Island Breeze in Hatteras that it's easy to propagate hydrangeas. I cut about a hundred stems from a huge lace-cap hydrangea planted years ago by an earlier owner, rooted them and stuck about 70 in logical locations around the yard.
More is better is my motto. I like big numbers. If one or two are pretty, 70 should be magnificent. And I'm getting ready to transplant a few dozen ginger lily roots, probably sprinkling them around in the few spots that aren't filled with hydrangeas.
When the time comes, I'll hang half a dozen pink mandevillas on the porch. The pinks have done well for me in the past, so of course last summer I switched to yellow because they were cheaper. They were also a total failure.
But I'll try pinks again this summer, because as a gardener I live by the motto, ``The whole world hates a quitter.''
However, I am getting a bit more skeptical about the promises made in those seed catalogs to people fed up with winter and dreaming of summer beauty.
I am NOT going to order any of ``The Sensational Tomato-Potato'' plants that grow tomatoes above ground and potatoes under ground.
Those seed catalog folks must think I'm stupid. Tomatoes and potatoes on the same plant! That's crazy. But let's see, there are a couple of spots that might be just right. . . by CNB