A Session With Dr. Hortfreud

A recent session with Dr. Hortfreud...

Carol, I see that you haven’t removed the sod by the fence and dug up that new bed. What happened?

Well, I was all set to do it, I really was. I even had a co-worker lined up who was going to split the cost of a sod cutter and cut out all the sod in exchange for getting to take it all to his yard. We even agreed on a date to do it.

That sounds like a good deal, but you didn’t do it. Why not? Did it rain?

Well, no, it didn't rain, exactly. There was some family stuff that came up.

Really, I heard about that but thought your family said to go ahead anyway.

Yes, they said that but I decided the right thing to do was wait.

So why aren’t you doing it now?

I’m afraid I won’t have time to plant it once I dig it up because there are so many other things I should be doing in the garden, like weeding, re-mulching the paths in the vegetable garden, mowing, and harvesting compost.

Yes, I heard you spent most of Saturday harvesting compost. Is that true?

Yes.

Hmmmm… you might be obsessed with compost, but we’ll talk about that later. Let’s explore further why you have resisted digging up the area by the fence. If you dug it up now do you know what you’d plant there?

Not exactly.

What? You don’t have a plan? What were you going to do, just dig it up and wait for divine inspiration? Why don’t you hire a landscape architect to come up with a plan for you?

I think I’m too cheap to do that.

Carol, I’ve seen your hoe collection and know how much you paid for some of those hoes. You are not that cheap.

Well, maybe I’m afraid of large planting beds? Isn’t there a name for that, like kiposphobia, since “kipos” is Greek for “garden”? Or maybe it is megaloskiposphobia, the fear of large gardens?

That sounds like some of those phobias you made up. We’ll address that later, too. I can’t solve all your issues in one session.

This garden therapy sounds like it is going to be expensive.

I’ll put you on a payment plan. Now, we need to get to the root cause of whatever is keeping you from digging up that area. If it is just that you don’t know what to do with that bed once you’ve removed the sod, what would be a good first step?

To come up with a design?

Yes, good! Now we are getting somewhere! Oh, sorry. Times up. For our next session I want you to be ready to discuss three ways to get a design for that area.

Okay, thank you Dr. Hortfreud. I’ll bring my ideas to my next session, I promise.