Daily Dose Blogger Bios

Garden Elves - Real or Imagined?

I haven't been peeking in on my front garden for a few days, not wanting to start some hair-brained dialog - but today I took a moment to dawdle there and see what's new. And what do I see but the most beautiful irises with their ruffled petals spread out like the petticoats of dancing cowgirls.

Like I said last year when these beauties popped up, I don't remember planting them. I might have been the lucky victim of a guerilla gardner.

I sometimes think about sneaking in to people's yards and planting what I think would look good - but more often I threaten my gardening friends with late night garden sabotage. I tell Michael, who works with me at Elysian Landscapes, that one morning he will wake up and his entire garden will be underplanted with pink alyssum. Judy fears the day I break into her back yard and dig up the Dracena draco I covet so very much, only to replace it with a pom pom boxwood topiary. One of my neighbor has perfect, tidy front borders - I have fantasies of replanting everything upside down and backwards.

Thank goodness I don't have the energy for guerilla gardening forays (I can barely keep up with my regular, everyday plant chores) or I would be a marked woman. I am glad that others aren't as ornery as I, and that they'd think enough about my garden to collaborate with me in secret.

They even picked my favorite color!

(In the interest of full disclosure, Jan thinks he remembers me planting the irises... but I truly, truly don't! I'm positive it was a guerilla, or maybe elves - pixies, even. Gardeners are supposed to believe in magic, right?)