There’s a planter in our front yard. One glance at it will tell you that we haven’t planted anything in it for years. It looks pretty lush, or even, what’s the word, verdant, but one look will tell you almost instinctively that a better word would be overgrown.  It’s very definitely overgrown with, uh, stuff.

A while back, My Darling B planted it with some pretty flowers, one of the flowers being somewhat daisy-like (it may have even been a daisy, for all I know about flowers), and year after year this thing makes a comeback, just to show it can, I guess. And one year I bought a dozen or so snapdragons to pretty up the planter next to the door. Having a few left over, I stuck them in the planter out front. They lasted one or two seasons, then gave up the ghost.

Everything else growing there, all that volunteer greenery, is wild. There are two or three milkweed plants that I’ll have to cut down before their pods break open and freak out all the lawn care fanatics in the neighborhood. There is creeping Charlie and, I think, some baby’s breath in there. There’s a freaking maple tree growing in one corner. That’s gonna have to go before the summer’s out.

Then again, I could let a couple of trees take root and grow long enough for their roots to break up the planter. Mowing around it is more trouble than it’s worth and the damned thing is really quite ugly. I’ve wanted to get rid of it for years.