Right.  Look, we have finally moved into our forever home.  We are unpacking things we haven’t seen in aeons.  I’m starting to be able to fall into a writing routine, and I refuse to harsh my mellow by writing about a bunch of over-privileged jerks who can’t pull their heads out.

And we are going to see Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2, because it comes out on my birthday, and there is enough separation between the movie org and the comic org to salve my conscience.  I am very excited about this, even if we are not going to the boozy theater for it.  And the boozy theater has been bought by another chain and has been going steadily downhill ever since, which makes me sad.

So, gardening.

But, Mickey, I hear you say.  What is so geeky about gardening?

Oh, have I got an earful for you.

First, I really only excel at a vanishingly small number of plants:  Begonias, roses, ferns, and I’ll never know about jade plants because my cats keep pulling all the leaves off of them, then spitting them out because yucky.

Because we have a large, very sunny porch, there’s a lot of potential for things like herbs, some vegetables, and roses.

However, knowing what will grow where you live, what will grow well with the soil and exposure you have will take research.  You can’t just order stuff online and expect it just work.  Different plants do better in different climates with different growing seasons.  Some will do well just about everywhere.  Some need a far hotter, dryer climate than we have up here.  Some of them need a much wetter climate than we can offer.

Also, once you start landscaping, the myriad of statuary and cute little figures you can add to your yard is immense.  There are mythological statues, zombies, depictions of real animals, reproductions of classical statues…  So many things.

Here in Seattle, we typically hit Gargoyles  for our nerdy/gothy garden statuary needs.

Thinkgeek has zombie and Star Trek yard gnomes.

Design Toscano  has a mind-boggling array of statuary, both indoor and outdoor.

Once you’ve found your source for statuary and other garden-y things, then what?

Well, it’s not a bad idea to lay out your space on grid paper and figure out where and how things will fit.  Pick a theme.  For inside the house we’re kind of all cephalopod all the time.  (I just found a rad octopus door knocker.). But we haven’t discussed the yard, outside of ogling some really neat crow statues.

I tend to favor more hippy/organic/fairy sort of things.  Greenman faces, goddess figures, small pixies and other magical creatures peeking out from beneath shrubs and small trees, as well as hanging hummingbird feeders and bat houses.  For planters I like grecian urn style planters, or rectangular box planters with classical patterns and motifs.

We do intend to put flag poles on every column and fly all of the pride flags, in addition to a specially commissioned house flag, and the Antifa  flag.

You can also find some really cool live plants that will work in your climate, I’m betting.  Again, this takes some research, and your best bet is to go to a local greenhouse and talk to the people who work there about what you have to work with, they’ll let you know what will grow.  There is in fact a black grass, it’s fairly pricey, and is a clumpy grass, so not a lawn type, but it makes a great accent.  There are tulips  that while not being a true black, are close enough for it to not be a big deal, and many Burgundy flowers, like anemones and lilies .  Also, many of the online nurseries now use cookies to track where you’re located, so they can tell you which plants will and won’t work for you.

You’ll probably want to talk to someone about how high maintenance some of these plants are.  Roses, apart from needing to be pruned back in the late fall and having the old blooms removed so they’ll keep blooming, are fairly low maintenance.  As are Irises.  In fact, Irises are so low maintenance they’ll take over your yard.  Most bulb propagating plants will self-propagate.

I’m kind of lazy and garden in spurts, so roses and irises are perfect for me.  A couple times a season I go out and do maintenance/thin them, and then I’m done.  For the more intensive things like herbs, they’re kept in smaller window boxes that I can maintain with a minimum of bother.

Also check your statuary to make sure it can be outdoors.  You can pretty much put everything INSIDE, but not all statues can be OUTSIDE.  Double check that before you put them outside.

I think that’s it.  Now I get to go home and do some more unpacking before the Geek Husband What Rules’s third band’s first show.

We have too many fucking books.

 

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