Gardening reality

In theory, I am a gardener.

This is what I like about gardening:

The smell of dirt.  Finding worms in my flowerbeds.  Looking for plants at garden centers.  Buying annuals and perennials without regard for what my beds have room for.  Shaking seed packets.  Drooling over gardening catalogs.   Planning what should go into containers.  Seeing tulips pushing up from the ground, and thinking about my Dutch grandmother.  Picking big fat zinnias.  Admiring old-fashioned Irises.  Loving Daylillies even if they're ditch flowers.

This is what I don't like about gardening:

Seeds that never sprout.  Feeling so attached to plants that I can't thin them.   The never-ending battle with thistles.  The way my containers look when I've not watered them enough.  How unrewarding it is to deal with the ugly parts of the season, when things are withered and need dead-heading and nothing is blooming.  Leaky garden hoses.  And honestly?  THE WORK.  I hate the work.  At the heart of things I'd rather be reading a book than hoisting a hoe.

For years I'd start out with good intentions and then peter out as the summer marched on.  By the end of July the garden looks dreadful, my plants suffer, it feels like a moral failure.   The last few years, I finally got honest with myself and owned up to my lack of follow-through.  Despite the spring urges, I spent a lot less money, made fewer plans, left the garden alone.

As March 2010 rolls to a close, however, I am feeling a kernel of something different:   Hope?  Ambition?  Reform?  Or possibly delusion?  I can't tell yet.  But I dunno; this could the year when I do the garden right.