This past Sunday was Hedgegeddon (pronounced Yardegeddon in the Jansonian dialect) and it was a complete and utter disaster. It rained all weekend (or so it seemed) and the rain didn’t stop for Hedgegeddon.
In the end Hedgegeddon Round 1 – You Win this Time Mother Nature! was a complete failure. There were 2 No-Call-No-Shows. 1 person backed out at the last minute. The ground was one cohesive piece of mud and wouldn’t give anything up. The chains and straps became wet and mud covered and slipped off the hedges regardless of technique. In the end, the ultimate battle between Man and Nature wasn’t even close.
The crew of Jason, Scottie D., Derrick and I were completely and utterly demolished. Even though Nature laughingly ran up the score on us at the end (like Tom Osborne teams of the past) by having my spade break in half in Derrick’s hands, our spirits are not crushed.
There is a reason that the most common signature at the bottom of my emails reads:
Man can be destroyed, but not defeated.
Hedgegeddon 2 – Suck It Mother Nature! (that is a working title) has already been scheduled. Barring rain, this time Mother Nature will feel the bitter taste of defeat. After all, the words before “A man can be destroyed…” are “But man is not made for defeat.”
Despite the Georgia Tech vs. Cumberland U. size of this last setback, the day was not without some small modicum of success:
There was actually a good thing that came out of Hedgegeddon. I stopped mowing certain sections of my yard in preparation for this unblessed event. When I stopped mowing a certain patch of the yard I found out that I have hollyhocks. Sweet!
I’m particularly proud of these hollyhocks because apparently these are a difficult flower to grow in this part of the Cyclone State. However, I can grow them without even trying. I truly am becoming a master gardener!
Here are a few other flower pictures from the Bennett Flower Gardens:
I’m hoping that there will be some moonflower and lily action in my backyard in the next couple of weeks. It also seems like the cherries will be ready for picking in the next couple of weeks as well!
Jealous! My hollyhocks grew the first year I planted them and I haven’t seen them since.
Someday I might teach you everything I know about growing flowers and then you could have hollyhocks as well.
You really are the Incidental Gardener! These are gorgeous – I think this is becoming a hobby, whether you want it to or not!
I am going to have to incorporate this this Incidental Gardener into something at some point. I just don’t know what yet. It is just too good of a title to let go to waste.
There is a problem with the hollyhocks though. The pink(er) and white hollyhocks are on the wrong side of the hedge.
There is the potential that during Hedgegeddon 2: Suck It Mother Nature! that it could also be the end of those hollyhocks. I wouldn’t want to say it would be Hollyhockegeddon because I don’t want to overuse the “egeddon” suffix.
I guess the alternative is to take the hedges next to the hollyhocks out by hand, but that seems like a lot of work. I guess we will see how much I love these hollyhocks.
Or perhaps the true question is how much do I love having hollyhocks when both my Mom, Steve and now Dawn have failed at growing them?
Although you would think a 6 foot tall flower would be able to handle some of the stuff it would endure with the hedges getting ripped out around them.
I think it’s a good idea to save your usage of “-egeddon” for the rarest of occasions. It’s like calling something “-esque” – you don’t want to cheapen it.