Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for November 10, 2022

Ooo… can we have raked sand traps too?!

Realistic? Sorry, Arlo what a woman wants , a woman will find a way.

Hobby Lobby has a lot of plastic plant’s

Why has Arlo always talked Janis out of having the perennial garden she wants? They require less work and water long-term.

There are native, drought tolerant, deer resistant and low maintenance, flowering trees and plants for every area that look good every season. These also help butterflies, bees and hummingbirds.

Build some shade structures and they can enjoy sitting outside in the summer heat more. Add drip irrigation and mulch and it’s even easier to care for.

Get advice from your county gardner’s groups. Ask Gene, Mary Lou and Meg to help with labor. Or hire people. Arlo doesn’t even have to do the work if that’s his concern.

I’ve designed and helped build gardens like this for friends and family all across the country.

It’s totally doable, would make Janis happy, and is easier to maintain as they get older. No reason not to help her create this.

I have plenty of flowers in my lawn .. er .. English Garden. All from native weeds so I don’t have to worry about watering them.

Janis is addicted gardening…

You might say she’s riding the white peony.

Or, a Japanese rock garden.

I loathe stone, pebble or rock gardens. They are worthless for nature, without local greenery including weeds there are no worms and insects to thrive there, so no birds, lizards, and small mammals that eat them. No predatory birds or mammals therefore, too. Cats and Foxes will come – and defecate.

Arlo wanted a boat for decades. Gets one given to him. Rarely uses it, and his son does all the maintenance work for him.

Janis has wanted a perennial garden for decades and has shown she will do the work for it, yet Arlo says no. Even gaslights her about it.

Make it make sense, JJ.

“Sitting in an EnglishGarden waiting for the sun”…………

that she throw at you

My lawn is a flower garden all summer long. Dandelions!

I tried the Zen garden thing. It died.

Xeriscape

How to kill a rock garden 101.

Oh! Janis’s eyes in the last panel! They’re positively feral—and I can hardly stand to look at them!

I’m with Arlo. Every spring the wife gets excited and buys plants we have no more room for, I get to plant them wherever there’s some bare dirt. The leftovers get put in pots. Then, every summer, I have to water them all ‘cause she’s lost interest.

Oh hum!!

My wife is English and her favorite flower is Sweet Peas. We live in southern New England and it is too warm to grow sweet peas.

Oooo. Tell me more…..

I thought they lived near Atlanta or Tallahassee. Stuff grows there. Kudzu, for example.

Most perennial flowers only bloom in spring and early summer, here in Michigan. The rest of the season must be augmented with annuals for color. None of this is easier. Water, water, water, weed, weed, weed. I’m 72 and am ready to pull it all out and plant grass.

I can’t even grow dirt…

I’m planting massive amounts of lavender in my front “garden.” Sprouting the seeds myself, though that is the hardest part. The failure rate is about 80%.

“…or old beer bottles.”

There is the option of native flowers & plants!

Never try to grow anything not native to that Zone. It is like pushing a rope. You cannot grow peaches in Pennsylvania. Likewise you cannot grow apples in the Florida Panhandle.

Since I can’t say something nice about this sequence, I’ll say nothing.

We are driving down to Butchart Gardens for Remembrance/Veterans Day. Looking forward to it.