Flowers and Weeds.....

The lawn service crew was here today, and I asked the man in charge (Senor Rosales) to weed the flowerbeds in the front of the house. I pointed out to him that the spider plants were multiplying like rabbits and crowding out my impatiens. He nodded his head and told me that he would have to pull up most of the "green spiders." Fine with me.

And off my husband and I went........ out to lunch. Big mistake.

When we came home, there were six plastic trash bags in front of our house. There also wasn't a pink or red bunch of impatiens left on either side of the front walkway. All of the spider plants were gone as well, except for two. We looked closely at the transparent trash bags and I could see hundreds of pink and red blooms pressed up against the bags. My husband and I looked at the bare dirt by the front-door flowerbeds and he asked me "Do you tell them to do that?"

"Of course not.... I just told them to neaten things up a bit and pull up the weeds." It was at that point that I stamped my foot against the sidewalk and wished that I had been more diligent with learning Spanish. (But I'd been planning a party and reading Faulkner!)

The lawn crew were still on our street..... they don't just do our lawn... they take care of five houses on this street. I found Senor Rosales and pointed out the bare flowerbeds by our front walkway and told him that his young man pulled out not only the weeds, but my flowers as well. "Si..... this is his first week with us..... he didn't know......"

Thankfully, because it was so hot today, the young man assigned to my flowerbeds didn't get to the larger flowerbeds in the front of the house... he just mauled the smaller ones by the front door. Senor Rosales said he'd be back on Monday with his wife and together they would finish the job and do it the right way.

After Senor Rosales left with his crew, I went out front and fixed up the small flowerbeds by the front door. No way could I have looked at that bare dirt from now till Monday. I took a shovel and dug up impatiens from the larger flowerbeds and replanted them by the front walkway. I moved around some of the garden ornaments and made a nice little arrangement with the statues and the ceramic bunnies.

The impatiens will come back stronger than ever, and will be knee-high once again in a few weeks' time. As for the spider plants, I won't be planting them by the front door anymore. They grow too quickly and spread out their "babies" faster than the impatiens can drop their seedlings.

Before Senor Rosales left, I asked him to bring a load of mulch when he comes back with his truck. We add mulch to the flowerbeds every year...... I don't know how it all disappears from year to year. Do the birds carry it away? Are the squirrels building mulch-condos up in the Live Oaks? Wouldn't you think that once you put down six inches of cypress mulch that it should just stay put?

The mulch will make the flowerbeds seem less empty till the impatiens start dropping seeds again. And hopefully, the mulch will lessen the growth of weeds in the larger flowerbeds out front. But from now till the trash truck comes by for Monday's pick-up, I will have to look at those transparent trash bags out by the curb. They look beautiful, I might add...... clear plastic bags filled with green leaves and zillions of impatiens. All they need to look spectacular is some bright ribbons tied at the tops of each one.