The deal was that I was supposed to go to the plant nursery and pick up a basket of hanging geraniums to prettily drape over the beloved bent twig chair Anne and Dougie made us, the one I set outside every spring by the woodshed.

So off I went to a place where they sell plants.

By myself.

Without adult supervision.

All I can say is that it's a very, very good thing that the Marnmobile is a teensy tiny Toyota Tercel because if I had a SUV-sized vehicle we'd be living on nothing but ramen all summer long.

My perennials have gone nuts this year with all the rain we've been having, and there is no space at all in any of my gardens for annuals. So what did I buy?

Why nine boxes of annuals, of course.

Wait, it gets worse.

I HAD SOME SORT OF BIZARRE SEMI-RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE AND I ACTUALLY BOUGHT TWO BOXES OF PETUNIAS.

ME!

I BOUGHT PETUNIAS!!

Petunias. Could there be anything less exotic? Feel free to point and snicker.

Oh, man, this is so embarrassing. I hardly know where to begin to explain why I'm making such a fuss about this. Well, they say admitting your problem takes you half way to solving it. Here goes:

Hello, my name is Marn and I Am An Outrageous Garden Snob.

Yep, as most of my three loyal readers have probably guessed, things such as cars, clothing, jewelry, and footwear really don't matter to me. (Just admitting that I don't have a thing about shoes is probably enough in some circles to trigger a demand for DNA testing STAT to confirm that I actually am, you know, a woman.)

Yep, mostly I'm oblivious to the allure of brand names, exclusivity, and fashion. But in at least one corner of my life I am a terrible, terrible snob and that corner is gardening.

It's not so much that I want to have the cool plant du jour or a garden in this year's hot colour, it's that, well, I consider certain plants um pedestrian and uh definitely not worthy of a place in MY garden thank you very much. Petunias, grown everywhere in the 'burbs when I was a kid, most definitely fell into that class.

Oh yes, Snooty Ms. Marn has never, ever grown petunias in HER garden. Well lah de DAH, eh?

Okay, so when I arrived at the nursery yesterday afternoon it started to rain. I ducked into the nearest greenhouse and it happened to be a greenhouse containing nothing but petunias. Normally I would have given it a wide berth, what with petunias being so ordinary and all.

And lo, the heavens parted, the scales fell from my eyes, and The Truth Was Revealed. I came as close to an epiphany as I will probably ever come.

People, petunias are not only stupidly gaudy, THEY SMELL INSANELY WONDERFUL!

Perfume!

Petunias Have Perfume!

WHY DIDN'T ANY OF YOU TELL ME ABOUT THIS?

Huh? HUH?

This whole lack of perfume in plants business is one of the things that makes me mental. When I think back to the gardens I remember from my childhood (you know, back when dinosaurs ruled the earth) one of the things I most clearly remember is the scents. Now, when you walk into a plant nursery, you're very, very lucky indeed to smell anything besides earth.

But man oh man, walking into the greenhouse full of petunias yesterday was like walking into a wall of fragrance. I can't believe that I let my snobbery rob me of one of the most intense joys of gardening, the wonder of scent.

Oh, I know there are real drawbacks to petunias. When the flowers start to fade and get wet they bear a startling resemblance to used kleenex. They need intensive deadheading both to look good and keep blooming. Fine. I'll deal with it.

(And no, deadheading has nothing to do with Jerry Garcia et al. Deadheading is the gardening term for picking off faded blossoms so the plant continues to produce new flowers. Remember, the whole point to flowering is setting seed for reproduction, not to be eye candy for humans. Once a plant sets seed it often feels its mission is accomplished and will stop blossoming.)

So yeah, these petunias are going to be a lot more work than most of the plants in my garden. But even you know what?

I don't care.

Perfume. I have found another plant with perfume. Colour me ecstatic.

--Marn

Mileage on the Marnometer: 294.92 miles (474.5 kilometers)
Goal for 2003: 500 miles - 804.5 kilometers