The “clear out the garden” segment of my garden reclamation project continues.  At this rate, I won’t be planting anything new until spring.  It’s starting to get a bit too cold.  It’s probably better anyway.  Give the plants that are there a chance to recover and see what it looks like next spring.

The great news?  I got to both ends of the garden.  It’s taken me almost 3 months of intermittent work to get to the end.

During that time, I found the path I almost forgot about.  Dug out a bush to make room for the healthier ones, got rid of countless bittersweet vines.  Inadvertently dug up some real plants because they were mixed in with the weeds.

And…on the left end, I dug out some ferns to find what was underneath them was – more ferns.  A different kind though.  Dark green, shiny, and in a clump.  As opposed to single non-descript ferns that I ripped out.

(c) Kathleen Thompson      “Before”

I found three plants I didn’t know I had underneath the mess.  I also found stones from a little stone wall that had fallen off.  I rebuilt the wall and added other stones to it.

When finished, it looked so much neater.  The plants could breathe.  It looked like someone cared.

(c) Kathleen Thompson       “After”

Whew!  All done.  Or is it?  As I said, I have a lot of empty space that will need filling in order for it to actually look like a garden.  Right now it looks like a haphazard combination of plants, especially in the middle, which is the focal point of the garden.  So I’m not done planting.

I’m not finished weeding either.  Because it took me so long to clear out the big weeds that tons of little weeds grew.  It started almost right away, and has continued.  It’s amazing how quickly they grow.

And I never finished trimming the tops of the bushes.  I never got the ladder out to reach the tops.  I suppose there’s still time, so I may get to that before it gets too cold.

This is so typical of projects, isn’t it?  We plan the project, and somehow miss the last little steps.  Or the clean-up.  I used to do this all the time when I gardened.  I’d budget the time it took to do the primary work, forgetting that I had to water everything, mulch, clean the tools, and put them away.  That extra stuff could add an hour to what I thought was going to be four.

And then there’s the reality that some things need regular maintenance.  Like your car.  Clothes.  House.  And my garden.  It’s just part of life.  It isn’t new, shiny, sexy.  It’s life.  And it’s important to understand what we’re signing up for when we buy or start something.

If I knew how much work it would be to maintain this garden, I may have just put a few shrubs and a small bed underneath the trees to soften the edges and let the rest be grass.  It would have been a lot less work, and may have even looked better.

I may still do that.

Because it’s not just important to count the cost before you invest.  It’s also important to count the cost along the way.  Not what you’ve already spent.  But the cost to continue to invest time or money.

If I want this garden to look like my vision, I’ll have a considerable investment in time and money.  If I want to turn some of it to lawn, there’s a cost to that too.  But I think it would be less of my time once the project was finished.

I have a decision to make.  And I’ll make that decision based on the facts now.  Not on what I already spent.  Because that time and money are gone, and have no bearing on the future.  Even though it feels like they do.

You make decisions like this every day.  You buy an outfit, don’t wear it, and wonder if you should keep it.  You buy a boat, thinking you’re going to use it all summer.  Two summers go buy and you find that you barely get time to sail.  You keep the boat because it’s already cost you so much money.  You start a business project that isn’t working.  But you feel like you need to keep pouring time and money to make it succeed.  After all, you’ve already invested so much.

But the decision to keep or get rid of something, to stay or go, shouldn’t be based on the past.  That’s true for my garden, and it’s true for you.

If you’ve got a decision to make about whether to stop or continue something, let’s commit together to make that decision based on today’s reality.  Not yesterday’s costs.  And if you’d like to share a story, please leave a comment.