Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for April 04, 2019

And if Arlo is smart, he will continue to stay out of the way and also refrain from saying “I told you so!”

Janis, fill the bottom of the pots with bricks and gravel for a third of the depth, saves on dirt, provides drainage if over watered.

I have used old plastic pots, turned upside down, to take up space in really large planters. There’s still plenty of depth for the roots, and enough room around the bottom for pebbles.

This helps with the too-heavy-to-move issue, too.

The pots that size are themselves pretty expensive.

Garden shop taught me to use those styrofoam packing noodles to fill up the bottom half of large pots. Works great, saves on soil, and they are lighter and easier to move around.

Aw the heck with it. Just let everything go to seed.

It is possible to be potting soil poor.

I’ve read you can use Dollar-Store pool noodles, cut up, or the ubiquitous plastic water bottles smashed, to help fill the bottom of large containers you might like to move. But the old plastic pots sounds good also and is a good way to recycle all those cheap pots from the plants you buy.

Jobs appear easy until you do one.

So what happened to the soil from the year before? Dirt is dirt. You don’t have to replace it every year. Just add some amendments.

And don’t forget, in the winter you’ll have to haul all these in and out of the garage. I can remember what kind of winters we’ve had by the number of times we moved plants in.

Great last panel. Life is full of lessons in irony.

Less is more doesn’t happen with flowers! I keep finding really pretty ones to “fill in that spot” or “need a bit more color here”!

You have to be careful about which kind of packing peanuts you use. Some are biodegradable and dissolve with water.

Not only do I hate yard work, I thoroughly despise it. Fortunately, my dear wife has a green thumb and loves (and insists upon) doing all the work. She says that it’s only fair because of all the hours I work at my job.

Is she a great wife or what?

By the way, she hates to cook, so we eat out nearly every day. Seems fair to me.

I get all my gardening tips from GoComics.

Plastic plants. The way is plastic plants. And you don’t have to water them.

Of course, I am the kind of gardener the plants run away from. It broke my heart to hear their whimpers as their dragged desperately their roots out of the soil to escape my care so I turned to plastic plants.