Gardening with Tim

I fell in love with the garden 3 years ago when we moved to our house in NE Portland. I've always wanted to be able to garden but up until a few years ago I seemed to kill everything I planted. It was pretty naive of me to think that I could move right in and be able to handle an established garden of this caliber. After about 3 months I knew I had to do something. Things that I didn't want to die were dying and the rest of it was becoming dangerously overgrown (a jungle). We hired a landscaping company to help "maintain" the garden. It took a little longer than it should have to realize we were being robbed; the landscaping company was charging us a small fortune to basically mow... and they even killed a tree. I fired them and interviewed a few other companies. They too wanted to charge huge amounts of money to mow. I decided what I needed was a gardening coach. Someone knowledgeable, trustworthy and experienced to help me learn to do it myself. In desperation I posted an ad to craigslist. After meeting with a few so-so potentials: Tim. First he pointed out that I had three blueberry bushes growing in the back. I had no idea. Then he told me that I could eat (yes, eat) the flowers of my nastersiums. (They taste like radishes.) But the best part was when he showed me the chocolate cosmos growing in the front. They have little burgundy-brown flowers that smell just like chocolate.

It's been Tim and me out there ever since. He's my gardening muse. And I have to say, the garden looks even better than before. It wouldn't be possible to know as many plants as Tim knows, but I know a lot now. It's the best feeling being surrounded by my favorite ones and watching them change from season to season. Some people call it yardwork, but I think of it as therapy.

Tim totally understands.