Hurry up, and WAIT

It's been a funny summer. We've tried to jumpstart a business in a brand new place, with virtually no connections, and at first, we thought we had succeeded beyond our wildest expectations. Our prospects were looking so good, and so close to home, that I did not aggressively pursue more work. After all, as anyone who knows me knows, I am loyal to existing customers and loathe to put them on hold while I go off doing other jobs.

This is my first 'steady', a garden coaching job with perfectly delightful people. But, they actually ARE doing their own work now, and what was a weekly job became twice a month, and now that has turned into every three weeks, and one of these days they won't need me at all.

I thought I had a nice arrangement with this house. I was mowing the grass (!) for him, getting the weeds in the beds under control, and slowly, here and there, incorporating some new plants into the landscape. Maybe too slowly. I don't know.

Around the end of July he asked me to hold off for a while so he could get these decks replaced. And, he had mentioned that the decks needed work in our initial conversation. But it is now mid September, and as far as I can tell, no work has even been started on the decks. Makes me wonder, and makes me a little sad.

These steps down to the lake would have probably been the last area to work on, but can't you just see the possibilities here? I sure can.

And then there is this place, which I thought 'for sure' we would be working for this summer. A good initial meeting with homeowners, who were importing their landscapers from Greenville, and seemed thrilled to have someone in the neighborhood who could come in and take care of the property. I have been assured of the work. But it has been since June, and we are waiting... an occasional email is always answered, eventually, and I have no doubt that they will use our gardening services. What year that will be, I'm not so sure...

Who wouldn't want to work here?

This one is especially frustrating. The homeowner stopped landscape work after the hardscape was in, and little was planted except for this extensive border of... liriope. Liriope? Really? This home is located on one of the most spectacular settings you can imagine, and someone saw fit to adorn it with one of the most boring plants ever. Okay, in a few years, when it fills in and blooms, and has complimentary plants behind it, it will probably be quite pretty. In the meantime, the whole place looks quite naked, while homeowner waits on previous landscaper to replace a few dozen of the liriope that died. And while I feel that he and I have made the connection that will get me some nice work out of this place, in the meantime I wait, and wait, and wait.

I won't bore you with the rest. And, there are more! Instead, I need to concentrate on the work that I do have, and stop wondering whether some internal memo has circulated around the lake regarding some crime I may have committed. Hmmm, a crime of passion... flower? A murder... of crows in my cornfield? Maybe they have seen my sad potted succulents that I have tried to nurse through a summer of shade, and extrapolated that to my gardening experience. Or, I try to convince myself, they simply know as well as I do that there is no hurry in the garden.

Whatever.