Garden Tour, part deux

 Forty days and counting.

That's how many days we have left before the Master Gardener's Tour begins on June 4-5. And I'm feeling the pressure.

OK, OK. I know what you're thinking. I spent more than 30 years of my professional career in journalism under deadline pressure. So what am I so worried about?

Well, it seems to be a different kind of pressure. When I wrote sports for The Dispatch, all our copy had to be in around 10 a.m. for the 11 a.m. press run. Curiously, I didn't mind that kind of pressure. It was kind of fun. It made putting out a daily newspaper resemble something like an everyday miracle.

I even once had the opportunity to run down to the press room and shout to the pressman, "Stop the presses!" It's something I always wanted to say and mean it. Really. I was working on a late-breaking story about a coach, I think, who just got hired. Or fired. I forget which. Anyway, within a span of 20 minutes or so, I got a few quotes, banged out the story, had the story repaginated and put on the press. The paper still hit the streets before noon and nobody was the wiser for it.

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

But this Master Gardener thing is different. The house still looks like it's climbing out of its winter hibernation, even though I spent the past week thatching and seeding – and reseeding – my front and back yards.

I do have seedlings in the front yard. It took about six days for the first sprouts to show, which is probably pretty quick. But then, we're down to 40 days. Six days can be interminable.

The back yard still looks like the 50-yard line of a natural turf football field after a game in the rain. C'mon seedlings. Hurry up. We only have 40 days to go.

I wonder if this is what it's like for the groundskeepers in Augusta as they get ready for The Masters every year? I feel their pain.

Kim just planted scarlet red geraniums in the kitchen window box, but the driveway window box is still waiting for ideas. The perennials in our front English Cottage Gardens are just now waking up, but we're still thinking about border plants to decorate the gardens with color.

Since I'm retired, I'm the guy who can invest four to five hours each day doing the weeding, seeding, mulching and watering. Kim is still a working professional, so her free time in the garden is limited to weekends. She's the garden organizer. She's the one who decides what goes where. So time is of the essence.

A garden deadline seems much more stressful because you're letting nature take its course. It's mostly out of our hands. All you can do is stand there and remind the seeds and plants and herbs and flowers, "Hey, guys. Hurry up. There's only 40 days to go."