Bad Dirt: The Side Garden

I don’t have good dirt. I have bad dirt. And because I’ve done nothing about this terrible situation in almost forty years, the bad dirt has gotten an attitude. Now, it acts like cement might if it was poured around ancient irises and holly plants, embed them for posterity, keep them as in amber for when the tour group comes past our house looking at the fossilized remains of life in the 2020’s.

I called a landscaper to come beat the bad dirt into submission, load it into a truck and replace it with dirt you’d want to sleep in naked. She’s also going to assess how near death my plants and shrubs are, euthanize the iffy ones, and go shopping with me for replacements!

What took me so long? I grew up thinking I’m supposed to do things myself. This includes cooking, cleaning a big house, shoveling snow (though I started to crack on that a few years ago), raking leaves, mowing the lawn, fixing my own computer (no joke), using a toothbrush on the grout in the shower, you know, all the things.

So, is calling my landscaping friend an accommodation to age, which would certainly be warranted, or is it long-awaited triumph of common sense? Or, as I think about it, a shedding of my Michigan upbringing where nuts and bolts were kept in Jiffy peanut butter jars screwed to an overhead panel and people painted their own houses standing on extension ladders that buckled in the middle and no sock was ever too worn out to be mended and dinner for five could be made from a can of salmon and some Saltines.

My father would have dealt with the bad dirt in year one. My mother would have huge purple irises erupting everywhere. I called the landscaper. Finally. Oh well.

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