The assistant gardener (my wife) has been home this week for spring break, and fortunately it’s been rainy until today when I came home to a trash can filled with a variety of clippings. I don’t dare dig deeper to see what’s beneath the ivies and periwinkle that she is always welcome to snip away at. In fact, I should not label her a gardener of any sort, assistant or otherwise, though I suppose she’s trying to be helpful.

No doubt, the vines strayed over paths since my wife last got around to this, and if pruning ivy off the stones is the worst she gets into, I’ll be relieved. Wandering through the garden I see little evidence of her butchery, which is rarely the case, so perhaps she wasn’t out for long, and did no serious damage on this seventy degree afternoon.

It should be no surprise that two people have differing visions of what the garden should be, and we do. I prefer a relaxed look with hostas and whatever else flopping over path stones, she does not. I prune nothing unless it’s dead, and don’t mind stepping over or around branches that stray. She prefers tidiness, I want flopping and straying.

My wife informs me that the new planting in the rear garden is horrible. I’ve removed too much lawn, and never mind that lawn isn’t much to look at, though it does make a nice contrast to planted areas. Truthfully, I’d remove all the lawn in this area below the koi pond except I’d have to lug stones down to make a path through the plantings. Grass is an inexpensive path, but besides the larger area over the septic field, I don’t see much use for it now that the kids are long gone. There are no ballgames, or hide and seek. And yes, my wife’s opinion does count, at least a little, so this is likely to be as far as I cut into this smaller area of lawn.