No pansies in MY yard!

I am very in tune with anything out of place around our house. For instance, coming home from work one day, it does not take me long to notice that three-quarters of our garden is missing.

The plants and flowers are not just trampled. They are no longer there. Being an observant sort of person, I am pretty sure they were there this morning. Then I notice that an enormous boulder, which I'm pretty sure was not there this morning, has been plopped down in the middle of my missing plants. I look around to make sure this is my house. Yes, there's our patio set, and the decorative ladder that we thought was quaint but didn't know what to do with, which we finally propped against the fence as if we are planning a nighttime raid into our neighbor's yard.

But most of the yard looks like hippos have performed a cha-cha through it, and locusts have followed up behind them. The rest of it is untouched.

Upon further reflection, I realize that this is all courtesy of Bob (please see previous blog for an introduction to Bob), who will install our new patio in a few weeks despite having a business card that says "pool service." Apparently he has cleared the way for the patio and thoughtfully provided us -- and all our neighbors -- with a sneak preview of the boulders that will be the centerpiece of the new garden. He has done this without letting us know he was going to do this. He has done this three days before we are expecting guests from out of town. Guests who not only will not see our new patio, but who will now see something akin to a landscape ravaged by war.

Bob later explains that he has saved all my plants and will put them back for me after the patio is done, which of course will not happen before our company comes. But Bob actually has bigger plans than just putting back my measly plants.

"I'll plant some winter pansies for you around the new boulders," he says. "They'll stay through January and really give you a lot of color through the winter."

Whoa, I say. I don't want color through the winter.

Bob is taken aback at this. Everyone likes color. He decides that I just have a thing against pansies, so he offers me other options for plants, grasses, moss -- yes, moss -- that will make the yard look nice until spring, when I can plant whatever else I want.

I shake my head. "Those don't really go with my vision for the garden," I say. Not that I have a vision for the garden, exactly, but whatever it is, it does not include things I have to take care of through the winter.

"It will make your garden stand out from all the others," Bob urges. It sure will. Ours will be the only one with an idiot -- me -- standing in the yard in January, shivering, tending to my plants while all our neighbors are relaxing in front of their fireplace.

Bob is stymied. Apparently he has never had a customer who didn't want him to do at least some landscaping after he has installed a patio/pool/fountain with statues wearing invisible clothing.

"It's going to look really dead all winter," he finally says, shaking his head as if I am making a terrible mistake.

That is the point of winter, I think to myself. Things die in the fall, they rest, and they come back in the spring. It's unnatural for flowers to be alive in the winter. Plus, I am lazy. I want to rest in the winter, too.

Bob gives up trying to sell me on the pansies, but he urges me to think about it. He then proceeds to tell me, step by step, how I can grow moss on my boulders. "It looks very nice," he assures me. This is a revelation, that people would actually create moss on purpose. Moss, to me, is one of those unfortunate life forms that should be referred to the Department of Homeland Security for disposal. I nod politely and deliberately misfile, in my brain, the information on growing moss so that I can never retrieve it.

In the end, with both Joe and Bob lobbying for the pansies, I give in. Of course, they aren't the ones who are going to have to take care of these flowers that go against the natural order of things. But, I figure pansies are better than moss.