Two Small Shrubs Recently Sentenced to Death

Every year about this time the neighborhood is abuzz about an exciting annual event.  For the old timers it's an opportunity to kick back and relish a lifetime of failures, albeit none their own.   My wife and I are the foils for their entertainment.  We are springtime  Santa Claus bringing joy to those gathered at their windows and perched on their patios.  The Oxford Height lifers; Frank-with-the-limp and his wife, Ticked-that-the-park-has-gone-to-the-dogs Connie; our back neighbors, the king and queen of the Colorado casinos, Catherine and Norm; and fast-talking gossip monster Priscilla and her hubby, Ray, who has heart surgeries like we have dental visits, all watch for us to emerge from our winter hiding.  While Puxatony Phil has a bigger following we provide a lot more excitement.   For it is  spring and time when we once again try to plant things that will eventually die.  Our biggest success so far is the one large tree/shrub thing that keeps growing five feet a year despite our attempts to kill it.  So, wait, that would be a failure, too.

The little bushes pictured to the right must have been awful criminals in their past lives.  They have been buried in the grisly remains of many other plants that have died their slow death on 'the row'.    The two in the middle are the new arrivals.  The two evergreens on the ends are the wardens.  Prisoners of the hard life--with a dog park closer than a fire hydrant they're hardened by humiliation.  Our newbies are called Lodenese Privet.  That is not the kind of prissy name you want in these botanical  badlands.  

All we can do is pray for them.  Tortured as they are, sitting in the afternoon sun, peering over the yard bricks at the unforgiving expanse of simmering asphalt.  I don't know how my wife and I became the executioners we are, but every hole we dig is another grave.