In search of some flower power

Springtime. The time of year for new beginnings, when little furry animals frolic and blah, blah, blah. Springtime to me means only one thing: time for yard work.

Unfortunately several years ago my wife and I left the care free world of renting apartments to the work-filled world of owning a home. And for the first time in our lives we had our own yard to maintain.

Keep in mind, my wife and I aren't exactly Mr. and Mrs. Green Thumb, unlike our neighbor who has one of the nicest yards I've ever seen. If you want to know what it looks like, just look at the cover of Better Homes and Gardens. While her yard has pretty green grass and flowers blooming in every color, ours has two big brown spots with no grass growing, no live plants or flowers (more on that later) and white rocks as decoration. But, we have decided to make our yard look nicer this spring. And by we, I of course mean, my wife.

Now, I am not lazy when it comes to yard work, no matter what my wife or neighbors might say. You see, I am just not interested. When it comes to working in the yard, I would rather be watching a ball game, lounging by a swimming pool or drilling a hole in my head. You know, something a little more fun.

My idea for our yard is to kill all of the grass and put down astroturf. I would even splurge and put down the new turf that actually looks a little bit like grass, but my wife still says no. So, each week I do my part of the yard work by sitting my skinny butt on our riding mower and keeping our grass cut. Unfortunately this is a job I can't pawn off on my wife. I tried that once and when I came home she had bent one of the mower blades 90 degrees the wrong way. She claims she didn't hit anything, but it looked like she tried to mow over a tree stump, either that or we have grass blades made out of steel.

But, mowing the grass is the extent of my yard work ability or at least all I am going to do short of being nagged to death.

Therefore, the rest is left up to my wife, which is actually a little bit scary. You see, my wife has a curse: she kills everything green she touches. I'm not saying she can't grow anything, because we always have plenty of weeds, but if we want flowers that aren't known as dandelions, we had better go get some made out of wood.

It isn't through lack of effort though. I've seen her follow the instructions step-by-step and God bless her she still can't grow anything. She is the Dr. Kevorkian of flowers. We bought potted flowers once to add something to the front of our house and they were dead within a week. So, instead of planting flowers in front of our house my wife just gave up and laid down some white rocks. At least she can't kill them like she is going to kill me when she reads this column.

But never fear, because my wife has now teamed up with my neighbor (who I guess got tired of looking at our pathetic yard and had to take action). I came home the other day and found little plants that look like lettuce leaves around the back of our house and twigs with something small and red on them planted in the front. I would call them buds, but that might actually mean that my wife is growing something. And since I know that is impossible, I'll just assume that is what they look like right before they die.

Maybe with our neighbor's help my wife will actually get the yard she wants. Me, I'm going to go see if the ball game is on and if not, I guess I'll get the drill.