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HANNIBAL, MO. -- “Mary, Mary quite contrary, how does your garden grow?  With cocklebur and jimson weed all in a row.”

Mother Goose inspired me scramble her lines as a way to taunt my little sister Mary growing up.  Bad karma.  Maybe that’s why weeds are the only plants to flourish under my care.  See my last column about the death sentence I bring to innocent flowers.

We bought our current home eight years ago from a master gardener.  She took classes and the whole works to earn this prestigious title among those who till and tend the soil.

If she realized the troll she was turning her garden over to, I’m sure she would have reconsidered the sale.

As sometimes happens, this lovely little master gardener stopped by see the place she used to call home.  I welcomed her inside.  I was proud of the work I had done on the house and for once it was clean enough that I wouldn’t be embarrassed.   She politely declined.  She wanted to see how the massive perennial garden had flourished in her absence.  I insisted she come in.  I pleaded, cajoled but stopped short of coercion to keep her from strolling through the grounds.  She would not be deterred.

I took the coward’s way out and stayed in the house while she mourned the loss of years of painstaking work.  I let her grieve in private.  I thought about finding a place to hide to avoid her accusing eyes, but I needn’t have bothered.  She quietly returned to her car and drove away, with not even a backward glance at her former garden or her quaint little home.  She hasn’t come back ;)

Take care~Sarah