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Flower gardens are strange and wonderful things. Although I have had many, this is the first time in my life I didn't move after the second year, and thus, the first time I had a four, five, six year old plant of any kind.

Also, each year, I mean to draw out my beds on paper, and mark the locations of my flowers. Several times I forgot to do it; once I did it, then couldn't find the drawings come spring.

Thus, I spend every spring waiting anxiously for my favorites, or new additions, but also spend time looking at a green sprout thinking, "Did I plant that?"

Is it a flower? Or a weed?

Heck, I don't know.

I know my Columbine, but thought this one was blue, and that one was yellow, and that one red - but they all seem to have traded places this year. (I swear!)

I know my Bearded Iris, which should be opening tomorrow or the next day.

I know the Glads, the other Iris, the Asiatic Lillies, the Day Lillies, but - are those four o'clocks? And are these the violets I planted or the wild ones? And I know those are tulips, but I've never planted tulips (Honest!) and what's that?

I know I didn't plant poison ivy.

I am quite familiar with the weed that came in the mulch I bought two years ago. It is everywhere. I can also easily identify the oriental grass I should have planted in a pot (also everywhere).

But I remember this thing bloomed late last year - a survivor after I pulled all the rest thinking they were weeds - but I don't know what it is. And I think that's a grape vine, although I didn't put it there.

I see other people's yards, where every bloom and bush is strategically placed, and I wonder - how do they do it?

My garden has never been, and never will be...
any more than an experiment out of control.

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Want to know more about DeLaHaye? Visit her web site at WV Travelers , or her online store at Impecunious Impressions, or read her weekly column at The Calhoun Chronicle.