Madness, daaaaaarling!
You have
simply GOT to proofread what I send you and fix the spelling mistakes,
as I certainly don't reread what I've written! Yesterday I wrote "heard"
instead of "herd"! GAAAWWD! {I
never edit!}
On the
way home from uni today with my colleague/friend, Blake, we started
talking about how we both hate the North American lawn. We feel that
they should be OUTLAWED and replaced with huge clumps of flowers,
(yes, he's a member of my choir!), shrubberies, or let them go wild!
Leave a border of grass around the edge, buy a few packets of mixed
seeds and plant yourself a mini-meadow in the middle designed to attract
birds, or butterflies! Think of all the time you'd save not having
to mow the lawn every 5 days. Time and gas and money! No more chemicals
being dumped onto the ground to keep your grass green. No more water
being wasted to keep it alive! No more noise on the weekends and exhaust
fumes from the mower. Birds and butterflies instead! BIRDS AND BUTTERFLIES,
PEOPLE!!!
Most
Japanese homes in the city don't have the space for a garden, let
alone a lawn, so most people resort to container gardening. Shun and
I have a fifty square meter roof garden (on the fifth floor) which
is absolutely FULL of fabulous flowers and plants! Everything is in
pots, and, yes, in the summer watering is time- consuming because
the wind up that high, and the heat can really dry things out, but
it's worth it. We have blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, mini
peaches, two kinds of Japanese berries which I have no idea what they
are, strawberries, mulberries and dozens of other flowering or leafy
plants. Two kinds of maples, several kinds of ivy and ferns, schefflera,
Japanese yew, three kinds of bamboo, privet (self seeded from bird
poop!), orchids, cymbidium ( a member of the orchid family), hibiscus,
camellias, herbs, roses, jasmine, wisteria, hosta, morning glories,
a willow tree, bougainvillea, Rose of Sharon, aspidistra, spider plants
EVERYWHERE, clematis, poppies (self-seeded), geraniums and on and
on and on ad infinitum!
(Almost..) In the next few weeks, we'll start buying the annuals to
add colour and pizzazz!
A lot
of neighbourhood parks have flowers planted in them by the people
that live nearby. The pocket park behind our building is absolutely
gorgeous this year! I don't know who organized it (probably one of
the old bossy-boots grannies), but they've outdone themselves. Get
together with your neighbours, pitch in a few dollars and beautify
your 'hood!
If you're
totally spastic and unable to keep even weeds alive, then go to a
good nursery, tell them what you want to do with your yard, and fill
it with low maintenance, hard-to-murder perennials which they'll help
you choose. They'll come back every year and you don't have to do
a thing! Plant a shrubbery or put in a large rock garden. Rocks are
fairly easy to look after and pretty tricky to kill. Plant a couple
of fruit trees. Put in a traditional Japanese garden! VOILA!
The wind
tonight is unreal, almost gale force, and I can hear things blowing
over on the roof! Crap! It's also making the windows bang and rattle
which is unsettling for our poor, neurotic little greyhound because
they make the same sounds as they do in an earthquake. He was here
all by himself on March 11th, along with the three cats, but cats
are cool and they didn't freak, and, you know, he still doesn't want
to come back into the building after walkies even after all these
weeks! The wisteria has just started blooming and I'm afraid to think
what it will look like tomorrow what with this tempest!
Anyway,
my dear, time to tidy up a bit before Shunbug gets home.
Looks like the storm has blown through here!!!
Kiss,
kiss!
