Me + Plants = Disaster

I don't fancy myself a gardener. The best I've done is on Sims 3 where I reached level 10 of the gardening skill. Otherwise, I definitely don't have a green thumb. I have had this plant, Herbert, since my freshmen year of college so about six years now.

Okay, so you don't need to tell me that he looks horrible and needs to be watered. Don't worry he'll be fine. He's been through a lot. He's been smashed in windows. He's been knocked off. He's had diseases. If a plant can have something happen to it then Herbert has it. Plus, he does this about once every couple of years. He starts looking really sad and pathetic then he comes back better than ever. 

The point is that this is the only thing I have been able to keep alive (well him, Rob, and Stella - they're still alive too). Well, this last spring I was really wanting a yard so I could have flowers, but since we live in an apartment we couldn't exactly dig up the yard, so we got some pots and planted some sunflowers, morning glories, and basil. 

The basil I have used for cooking and it grew like crazy. The summer got hot and the other flowers were fighting to stay alive, but I did see one sunflower before they to died. But just for the record it wasn't my fault. They died while we were on our honeymoon, so there wasn't much to be done about that. 

But the morning glories seems to still be fighting through. So we decided to let them. They had started climbing the dead sunflowers and since they were dead we just let them.

Just recently I decided I was tried of it all looking so trashy (and it doesn't matter that we are the only ones who sees it - I was tired of looking at it and feeling blah about them). So while we were out at Home Depot looking for a bigger pot for our peach tree (the peach tree was a bit of an accident but we thought we'd go for it), we saw some classier things for our morning glories to climb. 

So after work, I planted myself on the back deck and started working on the morning glories. And let me tell you, it wasn't pleasant. It took me the better part of an hour to get them untangled and the mess cleaned up. And then just when I would get them unwrapped from one thing and set them to the side, they started wrapping themselves around something else - including my camera strap. So I had a minor freak out at the thought of them wrapping themselves around me. I know morning glories aren't exactly known to eat people but all I could think about was Seymour. 

But I battled through and I am quite pleased with the results. Well, just see for yourself:

After what felt like forever, I felt like I was no farther along than I started. This was around the time I thought it was going to start eating me. I had to snap a picture just in case to show where I disappeared to.

Project complete! Looks a lot better to me and I think the morning glories are happier now. After spending so much time with them, I think I really know what they want out of life.

This is how the deck looks now. Well, the corner of the deck at least. The morning glories, peach tree and basil. We still have the old pots on the pouch pushed out of the way. We also have our outdoor couch, plus my personal favorite thing: the Christmas tree. I really wish we had outdoor storage so we could move the silly Christmas tree somewhere out of sight. Oh well.

I feel like it was a job well done and it looks tons better. So now they can die in style. I mean, what other choice do they have? I have a black thumb after all!