Fifties Bush

Tonight I am going to my first class at the Haverford Township Adult School. I am taking landscape design. For the good of the landscape. Our tiny brick cape is being inundated with yew that was planted when the house was built over 50 years ago. In addition to the four great yew, there are two sort of sad, but relatively tall, rhodedendron; they are sad because the old owner used to crop them into cube shapes. There are a few mountain laurel, which I hope to transplant to the backyard because, well, all this stuff is crammed together and no one's happy, least of all me. On the other side of the entrance there is an evergreen bush that blooms with white bell-shaped flowers in late summer--I can never remember the proper name of that one, but I have let it grow wild and it's blocking one of the windows. But truly, this poor plant was so unhappy in its former life as a block of bush. Around the corner, where no one can enjoy it, is a forsythia. That one left behind its legacy of poor haircuts last spring. Now if I could only train it to grow where I wanted it, instead of having it wrap itself around the drainpipe from the gutter...We also have an evergreen azalea accenting the path to the door. It's been pruned so badly parts of it are nothing but wood. (Sense a theme here?) Then there's the Japanese maple that is dying. I think it just needs to be fertilized, but who knows? I hope the teacher does!

So I won't be stitching tonight. I am happy to report, however, this morning on my commute, I finished the alphabet on Tall Flowers. Now to make the flowers grow wild.