Every year for the past three or four years my husband says that he has to paint the garage. He thinks he'll get an early start in the spring so that he doesn't have to work in the heat of the summer. "Oh no," I say, "you can't do it now, the clematis are leafing out. I don't want to disturb them. Let's wait until after they are done flowering." He's easy going, and he agrees with me.
A few weeks later he says, "Dear, can I start on the garage now?" "Hmmm, I guess we'll need to wait a little longer, " I say, "because the daylilies planted at their base are sending up scapes. It won't be long when they'll explode with color. You wouldn't want to miss that, would you?"
And of course, by then we're into the heat of the summer; right where he didn't want to be. And so, he decides to wait until fall. Now it's too cold for the paint or it rains day after day until the snow falls. Will it ever get done? I hope not, I quite like the rustic, unkempt look it adds to my otherwise proper Victorian garden.
And I rather think he likes the excuses I come up with. It gives him more time to sit under the umbrella at the garden table and contemplate when to start painting.
Things seem to move very slowly in a garden. But nothing ever remains the same. Jamie Jobb
