Me and my Tax Dollars at Work

Being a planner, I consider all possibilities, think several steps ahead, prepare, and then pull the trigger. Now that it’s time to either order plants, or know what to buy at the nursery, I’ve got all the money I need to...pay my federal taxes.

What I was going to spend on beds is now going to the feds. But I haven’t declared a moratorium on gardening. Being a planner, I have a Plan B: garden cheaply.

Moving plants around my yard last weekend instead of ordering new ones saved money. The irises, tansy, and yarrow may actually benefit from being thinned.

Sometimes cheaper is actually better. Certain plants are better planted by scattering their seeds than by transplanting them from (more expensive) pots. In such cases, the seed packets usually say "does not transplant well," or there is no advice for starting them indoors. I scattered seeds of love-in-a-mist (nigella), borage, and opium poppy (papaver somniferum). Cosmos and sunflower would work well in a sunny area.

Other seeds need to be started indoors long before the last frost. To grow them, I cleaned up some old seed trays and moved the fluorescent light fixture from the garage to the basement, hanging it a few inches above the trays. Verbena, convolvulus, creeping thyme, and dusty miller (cineraria maritima) are in the works.

Since I had looked forward to planting Jerusalem artichoke, I’ll see if I can get some from my neighbors. As a trade, I’ve started preparing for transplanting the sucker of an old garden rose I think they’ll like.

I doubt if I’ll ask my parents for plants, though, since I ask them for help only in emergencies—and this is no emergency. Running out of gardening money is just an inconvenience.