I just need to vent a little

I am so mad that I could bite bullets!!! This has to be the worst year I've had in gardening since I started.
1)I ordered a Angel Face rose and the rose I received looks like a pale faded out white rose.I never thought that I would find a rose that I couldn't find some beauty in but I was wrong. To top it off this was the rose that I put on Bittles memorial garden thinking that I would have a lovely purple rose, yea right!

2) I bought what I thought was a yellow rose only to find out that it is red and I don't have any idea what the darn things name is.

3)I then purchased some Ranunculus bulbs with a picture of lovely flowers that looks like roses but what I got was a flower that looks like a single poppy, or at least I think it looks like a poppy.

4)Now to top it off, I traded for triple yellow datura seeds and now it looks like I am not going to have that as well. It's no telling what I have instead, just have to wait and see.

5) I ordered walking garlic bulbs from Park Seeds and the only walking it seems to be doing is...walking my money out of my bank account.

Now I do know that in every life there are these little let downs but this is a little bit much.
I am so *@#*&@#*#& /;{ and I just feel like shouting... WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME?????

Then to top it off, it took forever for spring to get here and once it did arrive it flooded my whole yard, not half, not some, but all my yard! Now I ask you, isn't it enough to make you want scream. Wheewww!I needed that, thanks for listening.


This message was edited Tuesday, Jun 25th 1:07 AM

oh hon, I'm so sorry. I'd give anything if I had some of those to send you! yep, you've had the spring from h*ll.

Tig I thank you but I didn't say all of this to ask or beg for plants but just to get out how da-- mad I am. I hope I NEVER!NEVER!EVER HAVE ANOTHER YEAR LIKE THIS!!!! If I do I am going to quit garden and take up something else.

" I wish for you..."

Comfort on difficult days,
Smiles when sadness intrudes,
Rainbows to follow the clouds,
Laughter to kiss your lips,
Sunsets to warm your heart
Gentle hugs when spirits sag,
Friendships to brighten your being,
Beauty for your eyes to see,
Confidence for when you doubt,
Faith so that you can believe,
Courage to know yourself,
Patience to accept the truth,
And love to complete your life.
God Bless you!
I asked the Lord to bless you
As I prayed for you today
To guide you and protect you
As you go along your way....

His love is always with you
His promises are true
No matter what the tribulation
You know He will see us through
So when the road you're traveling on
Seems difficult at best
Give your problems to the Lord
And God will do the rest.

I know you weren't asking for plants, it's just the only thing I could think of to say. what terrible 'luck'! I would be so disappointed too. Guess it would be like ordering a double blue brug, waiting forever and getting a plain white. We put so much of ourselves into our plants, and things like this are a huge disappointment. And with a small yard like yours, I know every spot is precious and well planned. I'd definitely change where I order from. at least.

If it makes you feel any better, I am having just about the worst gardening year ever. Like you, I am threatening to quit gardening. What form of masochism keeps me going, I shall never know, because there certainly is very little compensation in the garden for all the work I've put in. It looks like a grasshopper's Luby's at closing time. Every stem and leaf is munched on, and the remaining skeletons are threatening to start a wildfire in the broiling sun. I feel like screaming, crying, kicking, smashing, and generally throwing a tantrum. And I just might do it. But I need an audience, because it will be a heck of a show with all the steam I've built up as I tried to be patient. Box office to the left, Windy and I split the take.

Windsurfer,
I understand totally,
although it could be worse...
you could have woodchucks.
Hang in there and keep smilin'! :-)

I too, am declaring war on the#%$@$#&*hoppers,even eating the garlic that's supposed to repel them... it repells them alright! after they've eaten it all, they leave to find something else to munch on! stripped my yarrow, eaten holes in most everything,you have to adapt to seeing powders that are unatractive or nothing at all.I,ve gone to five letter words... groan, shoot, b----,sorry...

CoCo thank you for the lovely poem.

Tig hon, I do appreciate what you said to me and didn't mean any harm,please know that. I am just so tired and sick of planting things and getting my hopes up to have them shot down. What really hurts the most is the rose on Bittles memorial garden. It is so da-- ugly, and right now I would destroy the flowers around it if I were to dig it up. I really don't want to do anymore digging there, to painfull.

Amiee I do know how you feel, and I am having problems with the Japanese Beetle eating down into every bloom on my Blue Girl Rose. I almost lost my mind and what makes it so bad is that I had the rose powder on it to stop those little nasty critters. Maybe he was getting a buzz off of it but it was the last buzz he got, I smashed his A-- but good.
Whenever your ready to go throw that fit please allow me to join you. I also want the police there so they can see how I commit murder and get away with it lol. A little humor to get us through the fight. I do hope that you can rid your garden of these pests and have something left in your garden, good luck.

Tink it does make one sick to see your plants bein destroyed and I hope that you can win the war against them.
In the mean time come and going Amiee and I and just throw a good old fashioned natural born fit with us, it may not help our gardens but it sure will help us get some of the frustraion out.

This message was edited Tuesday, Jun 25th 12:39 PM

Oh, ugh. Japanese beetles. I saw my first one today, and I'm sure things will be munched down really well by the time we get back from Tennesee!

I am wondering..we have "stink gourds" that grow wild along the roadsides. Nothing seems to bother them. The gourds are really bitter. I wonder if they were ground up,and water added, sprayed on plants, if it would deter pests? If you had the energy to look for them ,I guess you could say you had tried everything!

Do you mean buffalo gourd, the little striped nasties that follow a yellow flower? I have that in the pasture, and anywhere else I leave for long. I have been thinking along the same lines about rosemary and onions, maybe even mint. It's a lot of work, but might be worth a try. I really do need to find some way to feel good about gardening after the last four years of drought, bugs, fickle weather, ants, skeeters, did I miss anything?

GW I hope that your plants will make it through and have a wonderful time.

Did y'all have to mention the d*** beetles? They are eating EVERYTHING. I think they were a bit early this year, they've been here a couple of weeks already. My malva and beebalm look like shredded plants. I don't have a rose bud left, I think I killed 30 or 40 beetles on one bloom!! Argh, I need to get outside with the spray bottle and kill some beetles!!

Calla, what do you spray them with?

I haven't seen any yet, I was hoping they were late this year after the very cold spring. Or maybe I will be spared some this year after the invasions the past couple years. We can always hope!

I knock mine off into a container of water/bleach and enjoy their death throes! Too squeamish to crunch them. Yuck. Same with grasshoppers, but I squirt them with it. Doesn't hurt the plants, but boy do the grasshoppers die a slow, painful death. Good!

Kathy

I use pyrethrins and diatomaceous earth in a little quart sprayer.

Cala I hope you kill all of the suckers....more power to you! I am going to go on the war path here, and put fire under their butts. I am grounding the red hot pepers as I type this message. If that doesn't do the trick I will set fire to a piece of cotton and let the smoke drive them out so I can catch them in a air tight jar and watch them kick. Then I will make jewerly out of their behinds and sell them.

Oh Windsurfer..I'm so sorry for the garden year you are having. It seems all of our patience is being tried this year. I have grasshoppers, snails and slugs, and japanese beetles. I am attacking all with a vengence and seem to be holding my ground with them. And even though I have unlimited water from the creek, the plants are much happier with God's rain which we need soooooooo badly. The good news, all the wonderful plants and seeds that have been sent to me are doing well, at least most, and I'm enjoying seeing all the new things in my garden. Hang in there dear, I'll keep you in my prayers...v

Thanks Vic, I am trying to keep everything in order here. I have to replant my cucks because of the baby kittens from the stray cat has been tearing them out of the ground. They were just seedlings that I had replanted after the flooding. I hope I have enough time to get some cukes this year. I have gotten over my little fit I had to throw, and now just going to hope for the best.

Kit and everyone involve in this thread. it seems all of us have a problem this year in gardening. i do have my own share of problems too. but i am not going to allow anything to defeat me. although u see me posting nice blooms of oriental and asiatic lilies, some bulbs never show up at all. some that did come up turn yellow and dries up. the others produce weird looking buds and flowers.

so far, the only enemy i see are needle size caterpillar? or worms. other plants i grow sure come up to be weird looking, not the normal growth.

i am totally disheartened to see the tricyrtis [sp?], altroemeria and gardenia dried up and slowly died. in the spring time they were growing nicely... then have a sudden death! the sad part is i have nurtured these plants the past few year :(. i could never understand for the life of me what went wrong. all the plants get the same treatment. why some fail is beyond me to comprehend. this year sure is so weird!

MaVie, I am so sorry and totally surprised to read this. Thank you for posting it, I don't feel like such a garden klutz when people like you are also having problems.

MVR I am so sorry to hear that you losted your plants and I do know how you feel. Want to hear something funny, when I didn't know as much as I know now it seems I had better luck with my plants. Believe it or not I use to kill plastic roses, so I went to the library to find out what I was doing wrong with my house plants, well needless to say I have been hooked every since.
Well from now on I am going back to my old way of garden, just plant, water,and feed and not worry or watch them so closely and I know they will do fine.

Amiee take heart, everyone has problems with their plants no matter how experienced they are. That's just Mother Nature's way of keeping us from getting the big head lol.

Aimée... am sure everyone of us do have or trials this year in the garden. the fire that raze on Cajon Pass last week took my mind off the garden problems i've been having. we were engulf with thick heavy clouds of smoke for more than a week. glad to let u know the fire has moved away, far away from my abode. several times we were ready to evacuate when danger was too close for comfort. whew... glad that is over and done with. but then again, fire seem to have its own mind so we are still on alert cause we never heard word of the fire being contained, as yet.

life is too valuable to allow worries and problems to defeat us. we are far luckier compared to those suffering and still suffering due to the fire in Alaska, Arizona and Colorado. despite of the minor problems we have, life must go on.

MVR, I am relieved to know you are out of danger for the moment. I read that you had the van packed and ready to pull out. How frightening it must have been to have it so close. If it has turned, maybe it burned enough to create a safe path that won't support so much fire again soon.

Windsurffer, Aimée, Tink76627, Calalilly, MaVieRose et al

I'm really sorry to hear that you are having real problems with your plants this year, but please don't give up, or falter. This year I've lost:
3 Roses (strange sudden demise)
3 Delphiniums almost in bloom (workmen mashed them down)
5 Irises (neighbour's cat)
1 Astilbe (bl**dy Cat again)
2 Dahlias (slugs)
1 Clematis (looks like suicide, as he was healthy)
1 Lonicera periclymenum (just didn't grow, then disappeared)
1 Passiflora (don't know what happened!!)
plus many seeds which just didn't want to make any effort at all.

So there, we have all lost something, and not just one but many plants each. It wants me to do it better next time, because:
a) the cat has gone
b) the workmen have finished (well almost)
c) I still love seeing the wee ones growing up into big lovely flowers.

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. (King Robert the Bruce of Scotland a.d.1314)

Wintermoor

Aimée... the fire is now concentrated on an area away from civilization. it is on a mountaineous heavily forested area - where there is no danger to people and their home. am thankful the fire on El Cajon did not do much damage to people's home, just inconvenience to traffic on I-15 that has been close to keep people safe. truck drivers and commuters to and from Las Vegas were stranded for 10 hrs. each day the freeway was closed and danger is imminent.

Wintermoor ... sorry to learn about ur lost too. somehow, we all have out own share of failure and success. am not one to give up too easily. for every plant i lost, there will be other seeds or plants to take it's place. i have had my shares of loses, and i haven't given so far. as long as i've got my health... i can always keep trying.

MVR, I am so glad to hear the fire is gone from your area :D

Kit, keep hanging in there my friend; relief has to come soon! Supposed to get some rain tonight/tomorrow, and then COOLER!!!!!!! Your cukes should still have time to grow, you can plant them until 7/4 and still get a good crop (according to OSU). Not sure about your gourds, though. Let's hope it doesn't rain enough to float your swan again! To keep kittens/cats out of a bed, enclose it with chicken wire (do you have some?) That is how I am protecting my precious lupines from kathleen: squirrels dug them up twice but now happier and growing new leaves!!!!!

Kathy

Kit... i do not know how i could have missed ur response. we must have posted close to each other. i don't really feel so bad losing some plant. am just sorry i have to lose them somehow. i hope to be able to replace them someday.

thanks to a lot of DG friends somehow my lost has been replaced by new plants far more challenging than i anticipate them to be.

could it be cause of greed... wanting more plants than we can really handle or care for? or could be attributed to negligence? just like our children, we tend to pay more attention over the others? whatever the reason/s are, all we could do is try our best to keep them all alive.

Thanks Kathy. it is so nice to be able to get some rest and sleep over sleepless night and being at my wit's end and nerve wrecking experiences.

MVR I am over it now and decided to just try again. I do give my garden my full attention, it is my therapy. I am usually in my garden 12 to 13 hours a day, trying to keep on top of the weeds and the neighbors kids. The last two years is the first time I've had problems with flooding, hope to be moving this fall if all goes well and we can find a place that will let us have our three cat's.
I am so sorry to hear about the fire's out your way and I know that must have been a very hard time for you and family. I didn't know because I don't like to watch the news, it's to depressing. I have a brother that lives in Ca and I haven't talked to him for a while.

Kathy I am going to run them off with water, it's just to much trouble to put up chicken wire now that the plants are taking off.

I am sorry for all the gardeners here that have lost their plants. I decided to wait until payday and catch some of the plant sales here and maybe this time I'll get what I pay for.

Wind, Franklin Park Conservatory's Used Plant sale is Saturday 10 am-2pm! Go check it out; they occasionally have brugs :)

Thanks Kathy I will have to check it out.

Windsurffer, If you want some of the Triple Yellow Datrua seed from the flower that I have, I will send them to you when the seed is dry.

Glad you are not giving up wind, never thought of you as a quitter. I understand your frustration, but if everything always turned out perfect there would be no need for all of us. Good luck in future gardens, I am sure they will be splendid!

MaVie, I'm so glad to hear that you are safe from the fires!!! Whew!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, bless all of y'all's hearts! This all brings to mind a favorite quote: You're not stretching yourself as a gardener if you're not killing a few plants. ;-) I haven't done much better than you all. Since our recent cattle acquisition, I know I will now have to keep my gardening efforts confined to inside the new veggie garden fence. BUT, the raised beds need mending and the rest of the soil needs ammending and new beds need building, so there's not all that much room to grow things in at the moment. I have hopes for a fall garden, but in reality, it'll be next spring before I can do all that much out there. :( Atleast I will have room to grow flowers safely out of the reach of the cows and goats! :)

am leery to post this, but if some of U heared, a new fire has emerged yesterday afternoon cause by a burning car on the same area >> Cajon Pass. the fire started at 4 p.m. 6/26/02. fire spread to 1,500 acres, by 9 p.m. it was 5,500 acres. do NOT worry I AM SAFE. the van is ready to go at a moment's notice. accdg to the news there is a possibility it will flare up again by noontime when temperature rises, and the winds starts blowing again. so far, as i am writing this, as far south as i can see the skies is blackened with smoke. accdg to the fire chef, it will take another week to put this fire out. so far, the fire is 8 miles away from my place of abode. several houses along the path of fire were burned down but no human casualty.

sorry didn't mean to alarm anyone. i was just concerned some of u might have heard the fire in the news. all tv channels from here to Los Angeles, has it covered on television. so far, the good news is Gov. Davis has added more budget due to wide spread of fire and all the dry areas from San Diego to Los Angeles and the entire San Bernardino county. traffic on I-15 is halted every now and then, car & trucks are escorted by CHP to cross the burnt area. last night traffic on I-15 was halted for nearly 7 hrs. the freeway once again became a major parking lot to stranded travelers.

am SAFE. and will keep u guys posted if any changes comes up.

MVR I hadn't heard but I do pray everything will be alright.
You have been through so much already, and I know God will bless and protect you all (((BIG HUG)))
Don't worry about posting anything on this post, that's what it's for....venting.

MaVie, I did hear about this new fire, but I know you will be safe. I pray your family and your house will also be safe! Lord, please send the rains to put these terrible fires out!

Kathy

Ditto what Wind and Kathy said!

Well, sorry for those who lost plants, but it makes me feel a little better about my own gardening. Maybe I'm not totally at fault for some of my plant deaths this year. I can't seem to keep a dog gone fuschia alive. A lot of the seeds I started came up, but just don't seem to grow. Can't seem to get dusty miller to move either or either it just dies. A lot of other things have done well, though, and I'm very thankful for those.

About those buffalo gourds...In my gourd book it says that the buffalo gourd works great to deter certain insects and pests...it says to grind them us...and I think...use them in water. (I'm not home to check it in my book). Jo