Doing Hard Time

I was excited to plant the flower beds this afternoon. I stopped at Tom's Nursery where a cheery woman in a straw hat steered me toward the annuals I needed, helped me choose replacement shrubs for the ones that died over the winter, and convinced me to buy a bag of bone meal at the checkout stand. After dinner I hauled the shovel to the flower bed and thrust it into the soil. Or I should say I tried. I forgot how incredibly hard the clay soil is in Albany.

A half hour later I had turned, chopped, hacked, sliced and diced about five square feet of clay. Instead of the fine loam I had envisioned in my pre-planting euphoria, I faced a bed of dirt clods ranging from egg to tennis ball size. OK, I confess. There were a few about the size of my head, but I'm calling them "ornamental" and arranging them strategically in the back near the fence. I'm not worried. They'll be completely covered in morning glory and no one will even notice before long.

So now to the sad part -- my cutie-patootie petunias. I'm sure they never dreamed they'd be sentenced to hard time as they basked beneath the fine spray of the nursery hose and brought forth their first blooms under the watchful care of Miss Straw Hat. Never did they imagine their roots would have to scrabble, scratch and claw their way beyond their humus cradle.

I apologized to each plant personally as I set it in its cement-like cell and packed clay around its roots. I could nearly hear the cell door slam closed on each of them. Steve sprinkled humate on their heads like a blessing, and I doused them with the hose. I'll cross my fingers and pray for a jailbreak. Poor dears!