Gone To Pot

It makes me sad to look out on my deck and see all those pots filled with dead plants.  When we first looked at the house some 20 years ago, the deck was entirely barren and I thought it just cried out to be filled with flowers.  I brought a number of plants, flowers and herbs from the old house when we moved and went to work.  I was a habitue of every nursery in the P'ville area.  While there were a number of perennials, especially several varieties of lavender and a couple of crepe myrtles, the color of the annuals changed year to year.  Sometimes the theme was bright reds and yellows and sometimes blues and purples.  The deck was especially beautiful for Deb and Craig's wedding when my friend Dolly and I filled every pot to overflowing with white flowers.

Well, no more.  What with several years of drought and the need to conserve well water, the plants started dying off.  What hadn't croaked from lack of water was finished off by Robert the Raider and his gang of thugs.  There's nothing left alive out there now.  On a trip to town yesterday, several people in Wally World passed by pushing carts filled with colorful flowers.  I was so tempted, but one (or more) of Robert's young cohorts run the deck daily, checking to see if there were a green morsel or two left.  I can't see spending money just to watch it go down some squirrel's gullet.  The view off the deck is still spectacular.  On the deck, not s'much.  The pots look like the headstones in a graveyard.  Sad.