gardening, Seasons, Uncategorized

Garden Envy

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I think I’ve mentioned that there are a couple of gardens in my neighborhood that I adore.  In fact, on my daily walk with Guinevere, I try to walk by both houses before heading home.  I am insanely jealous of both these gardens, wishing I had the foresight and talent to have a garden like either of these.  As you know, my garden is just a mish-mosh of what I like and what survives in Minnesota, planted in dribs and drabs over the years.  A lot of hostas, lilies, sedum, irises.  The only overall plan is the “more flowers, less grass” plan – that’s it.  No maps, no sketches, no layouts.

On Saturday morning I was wasting time driving around Linden Hills (waiting for my 10 a.m. time slot to pick up some bread from the bakery) and a garden caught my attention.  Luckily no one was driving behind me, because I’m pretty sure I hit the breaks pretty good.  It was so breathtaking that I turned around on the next block and went back, parked the car and got out to admire it.  The photo I took doesn’t even begin to do justice to this yard.  I hung around for almost 10 minutes, kinda hoping that someone would come out of the house so I could compliment them, but alas, nobody.

As I looked, I realized that the overwhelming number of plants in the garden were hostas, lilies, sedum and irises – just like my garden!  Although this garden is certainly several steps up from mine, I thought that maybe I didn’t have to be INSANELY jealous… maybe just a little jealous.  It gave me a warm feeling as I drove off, thinking that maybe my hostas and lilies give others a few moments of happiness.

Do you battle any jealousy in your life?

37 thoughts on “Garden Envy”

  1. my jealousy has always existed in wish list form that provides me with a focus for my motivation.
    i find like your library book list if you put an item down on you wish lists it becomes a thing.
    the thing can be factored into some kind of equation to give you a brain surge that will make it happen.
    my ex wife is a garden planner. she has other talents but her best thing is garden planning. i have suggested to her that she do it for others and make it a vocation
    sunlight bloom timing plant heights perennial long term vision and care requirements get plugged in and in 3,4,5 years it looks just like your brain thought it would. those 3 or 4 years were going to happen anyway so you may as well plan and enjoy.
    jealousy could be renamed focused thoughts aimed at wants
    i live for those

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  2. i do look at others who do a better job of getting their to do list done than i do to help make me re-energize my relisting items and directions to become a reality

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  3. My sense is that envy and jealousy are not exactly the same thing. Of the two, I would say that jealousy is the more complicated emotion. Most dictionaries seem to describe the difference in terms of envy being simple covetousness of what someone else has, but jealousy being the fear that what someone else gains will be your loss. My own sense is that jealousy also extends to comparing someone else’s superior results to your own when, by your estimation, equal effort was expended. There’s a tinge of unfairness in jealousy.

    When I see a thing or a situation that I wish for myself, I always weigh it against the effort or compromise required to attain it. As it is, I’m pretty comfortable with my choices.

    That said, I do covet big sunny functional kitchens when I see them. We used to have one in our last house. This house will never have a big kitchen or a sunny one but it could be a lot more functional. Some day…

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      1. i watched with my girls yesterday an interesting documentary on taylor swift americana girl or something like that and it showed how if it is your life it is 24/7 and you cant stop because its what you who you are. i know when i started playing with my guitar group the 1 1/2 hour session the leader arranged with lunds in uptown was good but always left me wanting more when they kicked us out at 9 and then the 2nd friday stopped working for me and the wednesday night every week get together at the lunds community room in plymouth was available until they closed the store closed at 12 and when i first started the idea of staying until after 9 was appealing but i felt guilty getting home after 1130 and my wife gave me flack about it so i had to analyze the full deal and ended up staying until 12 for much of the time because it had become my favorite thing on my schedule. a bunch of guys playing a bunch of tunes in a group circle with my getting to sing harmony to some and lead on others helped me see that if you love it the time just melts and becomes an accent to the breathing thats going on.

        someone years ago pointed out that the kitchen is where people congragate. since i realized this the kitchen has always gotten primary consideration in my house. the bedroom gets an hour of my awake time, the office gets a bunch and the tv room music room garage handy man area all get treated like they are part of the equation in their proper degree of importance.

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  6. I don’t do jealousy very much. Not sure why, but I’ve never felt I was in competition with anyone in any field where their gain would be my loss. If someone’s better at something than I am, so be it. Good luck and reap the rewards of your ability.

    That said, I’m extremely envious of writers who can crank out full-length novels every year for decades. I just don’t seem to have that inspiration/drive/ability to concentrate/facility with the written word that the superstars have.

    That’s not to say all those annual novels are great. I’m a firm believer that quantity and quality are often mutually exclusive. But the writers whose average annual production is high and with decent quality are to be admired.

    I’m also envious of pro golfers. I’d LOVE to be one, but they’re much like concert pianists or elite-level athletes. Years and years of daily practice, 8-12 hours per day, plus exercise, specific training, diet, grueling travel, mental training (sports psychology), wear and tear on the body (golf is one of the worst possible sports for backs, wrists, elbows, knees even though it’s not a contact sport like football. Lots of excellent golfers fall off the radar for no reason. Then we find out they had a wrist or back or knee injury that essentially ended their careers.).

    No thanks. I’ll stick with 3-4 rounds per week with a little practice now and then. And I don’t play in rain much anymore, either. 😉

    Chris in Owatonna

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    1. i loved golf but had time issues with kids. im thinking about taking ut up when life gets in a flow that allows it. a round of 5 hours is ok on occasion but i cant today do it instead of my other stuff. if i could im not sure it would win the calendar slot

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      1. I don’t see anything weird on the admin side, sorry. Must be another one of those weird word press things.

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    2. So frustrating when that happens, and you wonder why it does, especially when you consider some of tim’s more creative comments, that WordPress apparently had no trouble parsing. Go figure.

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      1. Sometimes when I’m doing a response that I know it’s gonna be kind of long, I actually type it in Word — that way if it gets lost in the WordPress translation I can get it back.

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    3. ive had it tell me it can not post before also but as pj pointed out i usually have so many issues it could be any number of reasons. the fact you mere mortals get it too is of some consolation

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  9. i was wondering bill what if you redid the house and put the kitchen on the sunny side and put it next to a library book refurbishing/ living room area and enjoyed it instead of doing it the other way around. its your damn house and moving plumbing / cupboards may be a bitch the payoff would be worth it

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    1. 1. There isn’t a sunny side. The south side has a towering monstrosity that hugs the lot line and the north side is the north side.

      2. I completely redid a kitchen once, by myself. I was much younger and I wasn’t moving it to another part of the house. It’s not something I would undertake again.

      3. Anything I do in this house has to be in proportion with what the house is worth. Hiring a contractor to make that sort of change would be quixotic. It would make more sense to move, which we will someday, and I’ll be looking for a functional and appealing kitchen, among other things.

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  10. I don’t have much jealousy, either, that I can locate, but I do have envy. Yard Envy of my nearby friend. We’ve had a few bonfires already in her back yard, nice fire pit, couple of big trees on the fence line that are home to various squirrels and birds… Her house is great, too, but it’s the yard I most covet.

    I envy people the relationship I see with some dogs, but I don’t think it would be wise for us to get one at this stage (and with a tiny house and very little yard).

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  14. I know a couple who remodeled their house and added a big walk-in closet. Having a house with no storage space, I had serious closet envy. The husband was a producer on the TV show Hometime, and they had the work filmed for the TV show. I think they just had to pay for the materials for the remodel, and the TV show paid for everything else.

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