January: Grow the last of the winter amaryllis. Get royal pissed off when amaryllis ordered from fancy amaryllis breeder in Florida are not the Orange Sovereign you ordered (which matches your decorating scheme) but pink striped flowers which are nice but pedestrian.  Stare wistfully out window imagining trees with leaves on them.  Dream about the smell of pansies.

February: Obsessivley peruse seed catalogs.  Look at old photos of gardens from years past again and again to remember what they were like and what you liked about the color combinations.  Visit the butterfly pavilion which has a huge indoor greenhouse because you miss the smell of dirt.

March: Look every day for swelling buds on the crabapples.  Once they get large enough take shears and cut off several branches for indoor forcing.  Explain why you smash the end of the branches to your husband who is not in the least interested.  Check the nursery across the street every day as you drive by for the first pansies.  Buy two six packs the second they appear (March 21st).

April: Watch the daffodils grow, delight in the tulip buds breaking from the soil, you planted them last fall and they said they were orange–they better be.  Imagine what you will do to the rabbit that eats them.  Trim up all the perennials, notice how the Rose of Sharon looks so much like a dead twig but you know it isn’t so leave it alone.  Threaten husband not to pick ANYTHING unless asking you first what it is–he thinks everything not growing in the exact spot it was planted is a weed.

May: Try to wait until that frost free date (around May 10th), but never make it.  Come home with flats and flats of annuals on May 3rd.  Start planting containers.  They take more than a week to finish. When neighbor sees you pulling up to the front of the house and unloading flowers for the fourth time in two days, says you need an intervention.

June: Not happy with your own garden, add perennials to the pocket park down the street.  Yell at neighbor who lets dog piss on them.

July: Water containers twice a day.  Assess perennials and pull stuff out you don’t like, add new stuff because you can’t help yourself.

August: Relax to enjoy your efforts, watch hummingbird feed at the lobelia in your hanging baskets.

September: Think how much you like asters, you really should plant more but don’t have the room.

October: Assess which perennials look good in the fall–plumbago has the nicest red leaves.  Buy fall pansies even though you know for a fact they will most likely freeze solid.

November: For two days am relieved not to have to water, fertilize, or deadhead anything, then start thinking about what annuals you will plant next year.  Start amaryllis so they bloom in time for Christmas.

December: Go to fantastic orchid greenhouse and buy $30 orchid you will kill in two months, is the one plant you can’t seem to take care of.