We need you, Phil!

There was an article in the paper about gardening enthusiasts who are taking advantage of the mild weather to plan their gardens. They scheme and plot and haunt nurseries and pore over catalogs, looking for just the right seeds and bulbs to plant this year.

Surprisingly, no reporter came to interview me for this article.

But the article did inspire me. It inspired me to pray for 6 more weeks of winter, on top of Punxsutawney Phil's prediction.

Personally, I am only too happy to put off the day when I must do something with the garden. Unfortunately that won't be possible this year, as our neighborhood is planning a home and garden tour in May (this was NOT my idea), and even though our home is not on the tour, our garden -- or what passes for one -- will certainly be on display along with everyone else's in our row of homes.

My first idea on hearing this was to plant plastic flowers, and a neighbor thought that was a good idea, too, but now she is looking at flower catalogs -- that newspaper article must have inspired her somewhat differently than it inspired me -- and I am certainly not going to be the only one to have a plastic garden.

But maybe there is hope that I won't have to do too much. Today I noticed two little buds coming up, right in the middle of the garden. What they are, I have no idea. They certainly don't resemble anything I planted last year. Most likely they are something that blew over from my neighbor's yard. And if I am very, very lucky, more might appear -- and I won't have to plant any plastic flowers after all.