I stopped by the local big-box DIY store this afternoon and found it fully stocked with gardening products, and with hope.
Potted hyacinths scented the air, with a whiff of fertilizer from off in the distance. Racks of seed packets with beautiful illustrations of flowers and vegetables almost made me forget my lack of success starting pretty much anything indoors. And as they're undoubtedly designed to do, the patio sets, grills and fire pits got me thinking of warm summer days on the deck.
But I was there on a mission. My two-seasons-old gardening gloves had developed a rip in the middle finger. This would not be a problem if the extent of my gardening were planting pretty red geraniums in a window box, and then sitting down to a glass of iced tea. No: my yardwork includes tangling with my arch-enemy the multiflora rose and its mercilessly sharp curved thorns. So I quickly rejected the dainty cotton gloves in floral prints and went straight to the heavy armor: rugged reinforced leather with Velcro closures. They look like something an astronaut might wear. I will soon put them to the test.
Small talk with strangers is something I have greatly missed during the pandemic, so I was happy when another shopper came up to me in the garden center and said he couldn't find those brown coir liners for planters. It was his belief, he said darkly, that the store just wanted you to spend more and buy their premade planters rather than assembling your own.
