My addiction confessed

 

Dori Clark
Oregon writer
Roses and Thorns Blog

I’ve found that people with addictions do better overcoming them with a support group to hold them accountable.  I recently discovered that I have an addiction, and so I’m openly confessing to it in this forum with the hope that you will take on the responsibility of helping me conquer it.   Confessing weakness is difficult, but I must.

 

I am addicted to annual bedding plants.

 

I discovered this last week on a warm sunny day when I returned home from a recent shopping trip.  I’d stopped at my favorite garden store just to look and see what they had in.  I picked up a plant, then another and soon carried plant after plant, flat after flat up to the owner/cashier, who watched with a wicked smile at my growing collection.  His helper carried them all out to my car and put them in as, in a dazed condition I paid for them and drove home.  Getting out of the car I opened the back.  My Honda Pilot, all seats folded down was overflowing front to back with colorful blooms.

 

“What have I done,” I said out loud as realization of my addiction engulfed me.  Somehow carrying plant after plant and flat after flat up to the safety of the roof overhang was much more difficult than when I’d shopped for them.  And then the thought occurred to me, I have to plant all of these!  Why didn’t I think of that before buying them?

 

This is a yearly problem with me and I can’t seem to overcome it.  I drive by houses with beautiful flower beds decked out with perennials and think, I should put in more of those.  Over the years I’ve actually done so, but when the warm spring days arrive, I find myself once more driving to the garden shop and giving in to my yearly annual bedding plant addiction.

 

I’ve tried to analyze how this happened to me.  From the time I was a little girl I loved playing in dirt.  While Mama hoed her vegetables in the heat of summer, my friend Mary and I poured water into dirt, made mud pies and – yes, we really did – ate them.  It was a game to see which one of us spit it out first.  Mama just shook her head and went on hoeing.

 

When I married, and moved into our first home I wanted the yard to look nice and from the moment I planted my first marigold, I was hopelessly hooked. I love putting my hands into soil and feeling its coolness against my skin.  Each year when I have my nails done after planting, my manicurist just shakes his head and says, “Why won’t you use gloves?”  This year, for the first time I did.  It just isn’t the same, but I can’t stand to see that look he gives me when I don’t.

 

Perhaps the real reason I love planting is found in the Bible.  Genesis 2:15 states, Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. (NAS)  God made great variety in His creation for us to enjoy and gave us the task of keeping it up.  Maybe what I have isn’t such a bad thing.

So, forget about helping me with my addiction.  I’ve decided to keep it


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