Beginning Gardener's Handblog

When people ask me what season it is, I tell them it is spring because it is! Spring has sprung, and lying is bad! People don’t often ask me what season it is because they usually know or they have access to that information themselves. But were they to ask me, I would be ready. Believe you me.

One of the things of spring™ is that plants start to blossom and bloom. What a cool thing to have happen! Mother Nature is a sultry minx. Because the weather is warmer, people also begin to plant gardens. This year, I wanted to be one of these strategically mentioned people. So I decided to plant something! Let me tell you about it!!

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The first step, of course, was to have something to plant. Planting things doesn’t work well otherwise. Now, most people like to go buy seeds and grow things from the very beginning—they heard that it was a very good place to start. As I thought about what I could buy in its infant state and for whose preservation I would be responsible from that point on and on forever, I started to feel the existential dread of the fickleness and mystery of life. What would happen if… if I’m not good enough? What would happen if... I’m super scatterbrained (I am) and forget to put water on little dudes (I might [would])? I don’t know if I could live with myself if they couldn’t live with me. I’m very suggestible that way.

After a lot of deliberation, I decided to go with a plant that I couldn’t possibly kill. The type of plant I couldn’t possibly kill? One that was never alive.

My roommates and I bought a fake tree when we first moved into our current place to spice up the downstairs a little bit (wink wink). But when first downstairs roommate moved out and second downstairs roommate moved in, some of the spiciness left, and we also did some rearranging and there was no room for spicy fake tree (unwink). Spicy tree then needed a new home. And this fit my situation like sweet, sweet leather pants.

Now that I had something to plant, I needed something to plant it in. The fake tree came in a basket and fake soil, and I guess was kind of planted already in that sense. But to simplify things, I figured I should remove it. Turns out I couldn’t find a way to get it out of the basket simply, so of course I gave up and it was just going to stay there. I would just have to plant it in something bigger. Luckily, out front, we have something called the ground—right outside of our door, in fact. Hey and it's big. There's a little garden area that appeared to be in need of some spicing up and I had just the thing (winkles).

After clearing the spot, I borrowed a shovel from a homie and dug a holie big enough for a basket with a fake tree stuck forever inside of it. 

I then inserted the basket into the hole that had been prepared therefore. 

Once in to the right depth, I filled in the hole with ground powder, trying to cover most of the basket so as to look less like a ninny. I don't know. I'm sure the fake roots appreciate the privacy. 

Hey now, look here—

here we have ourselves a lovely ‘tree’ that’s going to look good 'n' dapper year round. Whilst everyone else’s gardens are dying painful deaths in the cold unyielding grasp of winter, this one will still be alive and vibrant–figuratively speaking. Check it out.

Envy of the neighbros, to be sure. A gleaming beacon of hope, shining bright in the bleakest of night. And one of the best things is that I very probably can't kill it, even with my fiercest, most concentrated negligence. And even as the neighbors’ real plants start to come back, they still have to live in constant fear of being responsible for the death of another living thing. They’ll spend countless hours outside caring for their plants while I’m sitting inside laughing at animal mashups, without a care in the world except what time I actually have to put pants on. Awesome. Man, gardening is great.