I really enjoy gardening catalogs. Every year, about this time, they start arriving in my mailbox--riots of color and hope when everything around is dead and brown. And even though my gardening policy is "if it can't survive without fussing, it can't live here" I still nourish the hope of lazy banks of flowers and foliage wending their way around my property.
When they come, I like to spend some quality time with them. The catalogs, I mean. With my pen out, I'll circle the first ones that strike my eye. Then, I'll go back and look at bloom times, spread and height and color compatibility. I'll often cut out the descriptions and pictures, arranging them side-by side to see how they'd look. I'll start filling out the form, erasing and moving things around until I've got the ideal list. Then I'll put the form in the envelop and put it up with the bills.
That's when my system goes off the rails. Once dreaming joins reality, I take the envelope down, tear it up and throw it away. Not a complaint, but a fact. We're paying off a bathroom that hadn't been useable for over a year because the shower leaked down into the basement and had leaking onto the floor damaging it, the subfloor underneath and the floor of the other bathroom. It was expensive to fix and we'll be paying it off until Christmas. Then there will be another project.
Still, the sight of new blooms and heirloom tomatoes on the printed page makes me happy. It's always nice to dream!
