Home & Garden

All hail the dirty fingernails and pine straw splinters.

The stabbing back pains, creaking joints and runny nose are each a blessed sign that summer has gone down in sweltering flames, and I can once again return to being a viable member of the gardening community.

Soon as the yellow leaves started drifting across my lawn like crunchy snowflakes, I began to map out a plan hatched back when rain was a myth and my outdoor life revolved around soaker hoses and wilted hydrangeas.

Now it's time to get busy like Bobby Brown.

Last weekend was spent ransoming some CDs to raise the money for a few necessities — times truly are tough all over, plus Poison just ain't as cool as they used to be — including flats of pansies, potting soil, garden soil, five bags of mulch and several bails of pine straw.

And for you manly yard warriors out there, spare me the internal dialogue. "You gonna pay for pine straw? I'll let ya come over and rake up all ya want for free."

I too have nasty needles scattered across every nook and cranny. But that stuff's tainted and loaded with unsavory debris. Besides, I like my pine straw the way I like my hostages — tied up tight with string and tossed neatly in the back of a truck.

The main goal for the weekend, which had already been dissected like a frog in sixth-grade biology between Daddy duties and indoor chores, was to correct the mistakes of the previous spring.

Pots are the bane of my existence. I love them in theory — well-contained, easy to water and moving them from one place to another doesn't require bathing with Lava soap afterward — but in practice they drive me to the brink of madness. I've yet to fully grasp the concept of what can and cannot survive long term in a pot, which is truly distressing given the numbers of totally rad pots I've got.

Wow … I actually just used the phrase "totally rad" in relation to gardening. Bet you won't get that from Martha Stewart. 'Course she might be a cyborg.

The first order of business was the yellow oleander.

Seeing as it was one of my novice purchases back when my gardening aspirations didn't require a second mortgage on the house, I didn't bother to save the all-important tag. Meaning I had no clue if it was of the cold hardy variety or not, which was why I had to lug the monstrosity in and out of the house every winter.

And given the fact that Jellybean's become as grabby as a game of Hungry, Hungry Hippos, having a poisonous plant looming over the kitchen table isn't particularly conducive to a healthy home environment.

Then there were Japanese maples to move and hostas to transplant, butterfly bushes in need of more sun and an October Maple whose root system was threatening to consume my septic tank … now there's a tasty image.

Fortunately, darkness comes early in the fall, so those tasks will have to wait for another weekend. Besides, I've gotta run to Wal-Mart. We're all out of Advil and my body's screaming.

But when it comes to gardening in the fall, it's like John Mellencamp sings, "It hurts so good."