Thursday, May 16, 2013

MULCH ado about nothing



Now that fleeting Spring has fully ‘sprung’, I’ve been sentenced to another year of ‘hard time’ in the yard in hopes of prolonging a blooming bounty of fancy foliage to foster and frequently fawn over. Typically in Mother Nature’s cruel yet unusual judgment, showy flowers and bursting buds should quickly wilt, drop-off and take up asylum in the neighbor’s gunk lined gutters as soon as seasonally possible. So my thankless job, along with millions of martyred garden minions like me, is to mount mountains of mucho mulch-o in an elephantine effort to garner the gift of greater growth-time in our gardens.  

Yes the unending cycle of nature’s fickle exorcism to ‘wash, rinse, and rePEAT’ soil from poor soul-less plants with dirtier and crustier barks than MY OWN has begun. This of course signals a time of ignorance, mulchy indecision, self-flagellation, and poorly manicured ungues except for my one ‘Hulk-green’ thumb. Between the rain, frost, drought, and neglect, there’s just too much pressure already to segregate bus loads of mulch varieties around the trees, lotsa’ hostas, and our habitat of inhumanity. 

Anyway I thought we were all supposed to be colorblind now so why does mulch come in so many flavors and grinds? Even coffee with all its dedicated legions of fancy corner cafes and mountaintop rarities still shows up handsomely cup after cup in a similar shade of ‘SAME’ every day. I don’t need a more colorful life since I’m already black n’ blue from working around this barnyard; green with envy of those who don’t have to, and  my grimy neck and a rosy ‘RED’ have always been such good friends?

Why should I care about a bunch of pushy bushy troublemaking trees n’ shrubbery who’s only purpose should be to filter the air, break wind, and ‘creak’ only when spoken to. All this work for a bunch of thoughtless organics who haunt n’ taunt me by unfurling millions of  little ‘flyers’ every year which they LEAVE all over the place every Fall.  Hmmm . . . maybe I should just move to the Amazon.com since this mulching thing  ‘ain’t’ my ‘BAG’ and I could shake my spear in peace. At least there the RUBBER trees make their own mulch and when they fall down around the hut, it’s delivered  and spread out for FREE!