I Never Promised You a Rose Garden 

I never thought I'd be one of those old farts you see puttering around their gardens, and for good reason. 
 
(1) I'm not old and
(2) I'm a lousy garderner.
 
Well, let me qualify that second part. I do not have a black thumb or anything like that - fact is, I can make things grow just fine. My problem  is that when things start growing,  they grow all over the place, and all kinds of strange things start growing right along with them. And I'm not just talking about your common everyday weeds, either, I'm talking about really weird looking stuff that looks like it landed here from Mars. I pulled something out the ground the other day that I swear to you looked like a little redwood tree. A little 1/100th scale redwood tree growing right there in my front yard. I was going to put it in a pot and call it Bonsai, but then I remembered that movie "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" where people are taken over by alien pods sent from outer space, and I decided to get rid of it. 
 
Anyways, I guess you could say that when it comes to gardening the thing I do best is the watering part, you know the part where you  stand there (or sit) and point a hose. Up, down, side-to-side, I can handle a hose with the best with them. And talk about finesse. Just by adjusting the nozzle and finding the perfect angle of trajectory,  I can even hit that plant way over there without once moving my feet. It's a subtle art, I tell you, with secrets all it's own.  I've developed a special move where I open the nozzle all the way and point it almost straight up in the air so that the water comes down on the plants from above. Plants like that, you see. That way, they don't think there's just some idiot over there with a hose but are actually fooled into thinking they're in the middle of a gentle summer rain. It's a little thing,  I know, but it's the little things  that separate you're amateur plant waterer from the pro.
 
Yeah, I can do the watering part with the best of them, but what I'm not so good at are the weeding part, the feeding part,  the trimming part, and especially the raking, digging, and getting down on your knees and doing actual physical labor part. To me all of that is really uncalled for anyways, and, after all,  mother nature can look after those kinds of details herself, can't she. In fact I'll go even further by saying that I'm genuinely concerned that too much digging and lifting could do real harm to the natural ecosystem.  After all, does anybody really know what kind of long term damage I could be doing when I go out there and pick those weeds? Of course not. Better safe than sorry, that's my motto. 

That is until a beautiful summer evening like this comes along, and before you know it  a sudden urge comes over me and there I am out there in the yard with a pair of clippers all set to have at those roses, and believe me, nothing brings out my shortcomings as a gardener more than those roses.  I don't know why that is. Nobody else seems to have the problems I do. Geez, I look at the neighbors yards and their rose bushes are always so trim and perky and symetrical, with bright, colorful blooms glowing perfectly in the sun, and then I look at my rose bushes and they look like a South American jungle with canes going this way and that and blooms hanging wearily in all kinds of unattractive ways.
 
Yeah, yeah, I know what you're thinking. Proper pruning is the secret to a healthy, well-shaped rose bush. Well, all  you rose experts out there, all I've got to say to that is Phhhhhhtt!!!! Believe me, I try proper pruning. Once I even asked a professional gardener friend of the family to show me how it's done. He was great. You know,  cut at a 45 deg. angle about a half inch above an outward growing leaf,  prune the canes growing through the middle, cut off the old blooms, etc..., and I try. I swear to you, I try, but I always seem to end up with either a rose bush that's on life support from overpruning, or a rose bush that grows right back into the same kind of mess I started out with, or both.
 
But like I said, it was a beautiful summer evening tonight, and there I was out in the yard again with my little clippers just clipping away at those roses and  pretending that I was actually doing some good. I know it's futile, but afterwards when I got out the hose started watering I just had to think  to myself  "Isn't gardening wonderful!" 

And so easy.