Hollyhock Hold-Em

Gardeners are gamblers.

There. 

I said it. 

There's no gardener twelve step recovery program, no Alcea Anonymous, no counselling or therapy groups because....get this....gardening has gotten this reputation for BEING therapy. (Can you beat that? It's being introduced in grade schools and prisons, for crying in a bucket! There's all this concern over legalizing marijuana in the U.S., while an insidious addiction is being released to vulnerable and unknowing citizens LEGITIMATELY.)

This time of year is the worst for gamblers....er....gardeners.

Every hardware/office supply/pharmacy/grocery store has a little auxiliary greenhouse set up to "deal" the cards (plants).  It's impossible to resist, even for those without dominant horticultural genetics. The greenhouses are just so...green, and bright, and smell good! After a long Montana winter, the colors beckon even the strongest willed curmudgeon.  

"Ooooo! Petunias! My grandma always grew petunias..."

and

"The tomato plant is $2.00 and will produce, like, 50 tomatoes.  I just spent $2.00 on ONE tomato at the grocery store and it'll be gone in 24 hours..."

or

"I grew a sunflower in a paper cup in first grade.  I could TOTALLY grow a garden this year. With petunias. And a hanging basket.  No...TWO hanging baskets."

You see?

EVIL!

And that's just the beginning!

When the soul is truly lost, one begins cutting moral deals with oneself. 

Example: "I don't spend money on cigarettes or gym memberships or even brand name salad dressing. I DESERVE a few flowers. And a couple tomato plants. And a rototiller."

Or so I've heard.

But the really ugly secret is about the underground plant deals going on in May, between gardeners of a certain level of commitment/addiction...

Here's the thing.

You can't move a day lily, iris, salvia, or viola in these circles unless you have a new varietal bootlegged from a cousin in Texas, say, who got it from Mexico, say, and "borrowed" the "cuttings" or "seed" from a garden they were walking past on a historical tour, say...

These are serious players. 

They're pro. 

Don't think you can offer up a regular old Harrison's Yellow rose *yawn* and get a blue poppy root. 

You'd better have something good. 

Something coveted in that zone.

Something....special.

The tricky thing about putting plants on the table in eastern Montana is that there are very, very few organisms that can survive in these conditions....-40 with windchill and no protection in January, 98 degrees with no humidity in July.  Basically, anything that will grow in either Siberia OR the aforementioned Mexico; preferably something that will grow either/or. 

Kind of like gardening on Mars.

And that's not mentioning the soil factor! 

The plant also has to be alkali tolerant, for the most part, and acclimated to gumbo soil which is basically clay pot stuff...goopy slick to cement consistency. 

This reduces the pool of plants even further.

Montana garden-lers have to learn to bluff really well or discover new species every few years.

If I lived in Missouri, I'd be throwing down Sophora secundiflora starts (Texas Mountain Laurel) and fishing for Aquilegia coerulea (blue columbine)...*wistful zone 5 dreams*...but here in Cohagen, I'm stuck with Russian sage and yarrow. 

I'm down to shuffling my own plants in my own yard, having no talent for bluffing or money for discovery.  

It's bleak.

HOWEVER...

It occurred to me when I was trying to unload some perennial geraniums and Siberian iris this spring that my mother-in-law (of the Pluhar Botanical Gardens) retired and moved last fall, forgetting to pack her abundant inventory of plants. Google searches don't have any information on the "respectable time to wait before garden salvage may commence" so I'm still in flux as to how long to refrain from relocating the loot.
I mean, saving the abandoned plants, of course.
And then...

Deal me in, kids; I'm back in the game!

actually
steal my MIL's plants. I may use the rhubarb and asparagus, but we've had a longstanding agreement about that for years, so it's not a dramatic showdown in any way.>

Reasons We Live For Summer

• FISHING.
• There are no school nights for three months.  THREE MONTHS! We can stay up with glow sticks and sparklers and movies on the Disney channel.  
• Bare feet or flip flops; either way...it's a glorious way to live.
• Milkshakes. (Or any other form of ice cream, but this is the pinnacle of ice cream perfection....) 
• Campfires, which occur on non-school nights wearing only flip flops or nothing on feet.
• Running through the sprinkler! 
• Windows open 24/7, drowning in fresh air....aaaahhhh....
• Days that last for approximately 18 hours, give or take a couple on either end of summer. (That's not a "fact", but it sure feels good to say it...)
• Tomatoes
• No school nights!!!! Did I mention that already?
• Baseball. (Go Red Sox!) (No. Really. GO!!! Hit, run, field, pitch strike outs....GO!!!!)
• Running in shorts...not insulated coveralls or fleece lined anything or stocking caps.
• Digging in the dirt. All of us.
• Fat, black cows with gorgeous big calves in a green pasture, grazing and growing the best steaks in the United States, amen. 
• Sidewalk chalk pictures of happy things, bright imaginations on display fearlessly.
• Bubbles
• Lakes and boats and eating chips in swimming suits before hitting the water again....barefoot, on an 18 hour day, before a campfire where the best steaks in the United States are grilled. 
• G&Ts on the deck....or at aforementioned lake.
• Friends and family in the Redneck Guesthouse!  We don't really get company the rest of the year, but in the summer our loved ones come sleep in our ancient camper/bunkhouse until they can't stand it. (About 3 days is the brave average.)
• Hammocks.
• Geraniums in pots that are, yes, predictable and unoriginal, but dear...and we have to water them every day. 
• Vacation Bible School...I'm going on nearly 20 years of VBS (with stops and starts in the middle), my kids have been every year of their life.  God touches lives here, you all; pray for your local VBS leaders and kids.
• Car windows down, hair blowing, Eagles blasting from the speakers....
• County fairs.
• COLOR!  Oh, my goodness....for 9 months of the year, all we see is grey, brown, and the occasional John Deere green on the tractor. In the summer we see dandelion yellow, popsicle blue, the indescribably beautiful red-white-and-blue of our nation's flag, green winter wheat, orange sunsets....we're so thirsty for color, and for three months of the year we just soak it up.
• Rodeos. My kids don't see nearly enough, but rodeo = summer to me.
• The smell of warm sagebrush....  I'm pretty sure God will pipe that into Heaven for us.
• Birdsong.  It's silent here, except for the wind.  The larks and blackbirds are the soundtrack to summer on the prairie in the summer.
• Branding smoke.  Oh, for homesick if you're gone this time of year!
• Potato salad and potato chips.  I know you can make it any time of the year but it really and truly is seasonal for me. 
• Swimming til cold, sear on the shore, repeat...
• Beer. Don't judge.
• No school nights. For three months. Barefoot. 18 hour days.

To be continued...

(Why do YOU live for summer?)