Ciscoe Morris’ 10 gardening resolutions he might even keep

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Originally published Jan. 1, 2015 
By Ciscoe Morris, former In the Garden writer

MY IRONCLAD, will-not-break, 2015 New Year’s gardening resolutions: 

• I will no longer order rare and unusual plants sent to my home from specialty nurseries, knowing it upsets the living tweetle out of my wife when she sees how much I paid for them. (Instead, I’ll have them sent to a neighbor’s house so I can sneak them into the garden when my wife isn’t home.) 

• I will stop buying rare and unusual plants unless I know right where I’m going to put them. (Of course, that’s no problem, because I know that I can put them in the driveway until I figure out where to plant them.) 

• I will not make a sour face when I look into the bag of goodies that folks bring to me at my garden talks and find Brussels sprouts rather than chocolate chip cookies. (Don’t forget to add nuts and the larger semisweet chocolate chips.) 

• I will stay in great shape for gardening by making sure my diet includes all the good things that scientists recently have found are good for us, such as wine, beer, chocolate and Brussels sprouts. (When will they add hot-fudge sundaes to that list?) 

• I’ll never again try to bring a 15-foot-tall Eucalyptus home in my Mini Cooper by standing it up through the sunroof. (Or at least if I do, I won’t use the drive-through at my local espresso place with the low overhang again.) 

• I will not get mad when my pooch Fred buries his bones, his expensive toys, my expensive shoes, the neighbors’ brand-new gardening gloves, etc., under my valuable plants. (Instead, I will train him to bury his booty on my wife’s side of the garden.) 

• I’ll never again have fresh manure delivered to my home on an 87-degree day. (I had no idea “the essence of Iowa” could permeate an entire neighborhood.) 

• I will never again cut off the footies from my wife’s pantyhose when she isn’t home in order to use them to cover my apples to repel apple maggots. (It’s embarrassing to be seen with a woman whose nylons come down only to her ankles.) 

• I absolutely never again will plug up the bathtub drain with soil by taking showers with my plants in an effort to rid them of bugs. (I’ll just be more careful to keep the soil from falling out when I turn them over to wash under the leaves.) 

• The next time the rental place sends the wrong backhoe with controls opposite to the one I’m used to, I’ll call and ask them to swap it for the one I ordered. (This will be an easy resolution to keep because I’ve been banned from bringing backhoes home ever since I put a 2-ton rock through the side of the house.) 

Happy New Year!