Friday, May 29, 2009

Stick it to the Man for $4.50

I recently went to Wal-Mart and saw that they were having a sale on rosebushes. After calmly thinking about it for a minute (Oh My Gosh! Roses are on SALE, Let's buy them ALL!), I thought it might be worth it to pick one up.
Of course, I live in an apartment and I am not the gardener. No, I planned to plant that baby in soil I don't technically own. I have asked the apartment manager if the "owners" would consider allowing a community garden. I thought it was worth a shot in these eco-friendly times. Well I'm still waiting to hear what they thought of THAT idea. They also won't put bike racks in front of ANY apartments. I never thought of myself as a tree-hugger or anything, but bike racks would be useful.
So anyway, I bought a rosebush for $4.50. It's lavender. There was one rose left on it when I bought it (hopefully it wasn't on sale because it had swine flu or something) and it smelled really nice. Well, the rose died, and so far no new ones. Of course that was only three days ago, and I've been checking it twice a day. But I'm ahead of myself. I get it home and in the utmost secrecy of the dead of night (8:30 pm and well lit by the Post Office parking lights 'cross the fence) I carried our family shovel around the back of our building.
We live in the back corner of the complex so we only get foundation-planted privet - no boxwoods like the buildings in the center of the complex, not to mention the flowering annuals that the near-the-gate people get. From past observation I knew there was a convenient gap in the bushes. Yep, you guessed it - I planted my $4.50 rosebush....wait for it....IN THE GAP! I know, brilliant right?
I'm thinkin' what are they gonna do? The maintenance men are the only workers who go back there. Hopefully they won't notice my little "rosa anarchia." I can just see them going to the manager: "Someone's been planting rogue rosebushes in the back lot. We gotta nip this in the bud, no pun intended ma'am, or they're gonna start in on bedding plants next. Before you can say 'possession is 9/10ths of the law' there'll be allium, begonias, and God forbid - cannas tearin' it up back there."
Even if they do - I'm only out $4.50! HA!

But you know, the maintenance men were right, this is just my foot in the door. If they'll let this slide I'll try some alliums.

And here's Peter where we like to lay in the grass and look up at the tree. In the background you can see the back. The rose bush is right around that corner.