Color Me Frustrated

Here's my garden right now.

And let's not forget this:


I am so annoyed with the weather, my new site, the trees. You name it, it's bugging me right now.


I had intended, by this point in the growing season, to be preparing my beds for new plants. Instead, thanks to the crappy weather, I still have 9 bags of rose cuttings living in my house. I also have no clear idea where I'm going to put them once it actually warms up to the point where they can be planted out.


I have spent some weeks observing our lot and determining where the light falls and for how long so I will know where to plant things. As a result of all this cogitation, I have come to the conclusion that I don't have enough room for all the plants I want to put in.

This, you understand, is a serious problem for the gardener.


Today I gingerly approached my husband about expanding the bed in the front of the house, the only one that really gets full sun. This expansion would add about a foot of depth all along the bed, making it about 5 feet deep and 15 feet long in full sun with an additional 10 feet in partial sun. The 10 foot strip along the walk would be 3 feet deep. This is pretty skimpy, in my mind, since my last flowerbed was 35 feet long and 5-6 feet deep. It's hard not to feel cheated, or at the very least, peevish.


The real issue here is that the current bed is bounded on one side by a short retaining wall. It's not more than 3 stones high, but moving it (and constructing a new wall) is not something I can do alone. I'm not even sure it's something I can do without some fairly precise help. And naturally, it's not something that my husband thinks is really possible right now. He said, and I quote, "maybe next summer."


Next summer? Is he kidding?


I want to get that bed going NOW. It's the only place I can really grow roses and clematis and daylilies and knautia and siberian iris and all the good stuff that I am missing so badly.
He just doesn't get it. I am enduring the first spring without daffodils since 1994. I will lose my mind if I have to go without roses and peonies and sedums and..and...


I think I may cry.


In my head I'm trying to sort out what, if anything, I am going to be able to do strictly by myself this year. In my old garden I did all the work -- all the digging, edging, planting, watering, etc. Of course, I was 10 years younger and had no kids, so my time was entirely my own and my body was a lot more cooperative. I am going to have to think carefully and figure out what can be done in 60-minute increments (nap time) that won't actually put me in traction.


Also I'm going to have to figure out whether I really can wait on that front bed or whether I can finagle it somehow. Hire the work out? Maybe I should get a bid from someone.


Here's what I'm missing:

Papaver "Princess Victoria Louise"

Allium "Globemaster." Behind them is Austin rose "The Prince" and some "Husker Red " penstemmon.

Allium "Moly"

Peony I inherited from my grandmother. It's probably 60 years old; maybe older.

Austin Rose "Mary Rose" always first to bloom and last to quit in my garden.

Austin Rose "Kathryn Morley" not much scent, but blooms like masses of petticoats.

Austin Rose "Abraham Darby:" Probably my favorite, with huge, luscious blooms and a sweet, fruity scent that make you want to swoon. The color, which you can't really see here, is a gorgeous pink-coral-yellow blend that I adore.

Clematis Jackmanii --and oldie but soooo good.

How can I wait until next summer for this?