DIANE MAKAR MURPHY When it comes to gardening, I have a brown belt

The people in my neighborhood aren't "lawn crazy." It's as likely you'll see them walking the dog or playing with the kids or grandkids as killing weeds.
But the neighborhood nonetheless boasts many lovely yards. These well-manicured and cut lawns are often populated by seasonal flowers -- this time of year, red, yellow and violet mums. My yard, however, isn't among these -- as I was once again reminded, returning home from a walk last evening.
To the side of my house is the only strip of landscaping I didn't inherit from the previous owner. It travels along the walkway to our front door, and a mere few months ago featured four healthy dwarf evergreens and four ground-hugging shrubs, all planted by me in the spring.
These were lovingly put into the earth after I bought rather expensive Miracle Grow fertilizer and carefully read the instructions on its bag. I bought it and the plants in a rare moment of outdoor domesticity. In went the fertilizer, in went the root sacks, in went the potting soil, on went the mulch. A loving pat, and I was done.
Dead and dying
Last night, however (and today as you read this, unless a miracle has taken place), that strip of land, which showed so much promise in May, featured three dying evergreens, one dry brown twig, and four squat decayed things in between.
I got bored with watering.
Gardening, for me, is a process of discovering what I can't kill.
It was long ago that I realized the only houseplant I can keep is a philodendron. Relentlessly forgiving, they can be left in pots too small for their roots and neglected until I discover their yellowed leaves dying of thirst on my carpet.
Despite the fact that I have never kept a fern alive for more than 15 minutes, I carry from house to house with me a philodendron that originated in Arizona more than 10 years ago. I love that plant.
Vegetable garden
At one point in my dubious agricultural career, I planted a vegetable garden in Houston, Texas. I discovered with enough proper tilling, manure and neglect, anyone can cultivate weeds.
Years later, as a home school project with my daughter, I grew carrots so small they could have been sprinkles on a Halloween cupcake. Rabbits ignored our garden -- it would have been a waste of precious time.
My sister has a flower garden that is her heart and soul. She tends it with love and authority, testing her soil for alkalinity and nitrogen and getting cuttings and plants from friends as well as greenhouses.
She speaks admiringly of her rosebush, which climbs up the trellis her husband specially placed against the house. She prepares her annuals for planting in an amazingly gorgeous, polished wood garden house her husband built on the second level of their deck. (It looks like the bartender's shack at an expensive Tahitian resort.)
When we moved into our first house in Boardman, my sister and her friends gave us plants as housewarming gifts. Into the soil out front of our walkway went Chinese lanterns, sweet woodruff and chives and other gorgeous or aromatic plants I forgot the names of almost as soon as I planted them. I struggled to keep them alive season after season, even adding others.
Wild time
One year, I bought a packet of wildflowers and scattered the seeds next to the not-so-wild ones my sister had donated. Heavy spring rains that year were the Midas touch for my garden. The wildflowers exploded in a rainbow of colors inching up higher and higher on the white picket fence that lined our sidewalk, until finally they parted like hair on a head. They fell to the ground in ugly disarray, and I was forced to once again admit that I am fit to raise only philodendrons.
Occasionally, when I see the neighbors‚ gorgeous explosions of color lining their walkways or circling their trees, I feel sad and deprived. But then, I simply go inside and sit by MY plant. It'll be OK.
murphy@vindy.com