pj - this is great! :)

PJ!!!!

I admire your choice of mulch, but have one suggestion. I trust you know that your rubber mulch now comes in more colors than Petroleum Black? Royal Blue, for instance, which looks especially natural in the daytime, mirroring the sky above. I grow a lot of marigolds, myself, so I like to use Blaze Orange mulch. I've found that I can plant a lot less seedlings that way---the mulch giving the illusion of a full bed when in fact I've only planted a six-pack. Everyone admired my Salvia bed last year, which was really just a single blue salvia planted in front of a mirror and surrounded by Goodyear's Royal Blue.

Dear friend, I (and my co-hostess, Miss Ellie) are having the fifth annual Garden Webbers in Maine convention and hope that you will attend, so that you may see the Blaze Orange in person. July 16-22

And I'm with you on the compost issue---especially when I read this forum and find that these newcomers to SCM are putting things like bread and carrot peelings and grass clippings, etc. etc., into their piles---all things that can be taken to the local landfill. I'm disgusted that people don't make full use of their landfills.

And why use Round Up when a good friend of yours still has an ample supply of the civilian version of Agent Orange free for the asking?

Dang, PJ.
When did you move into my neighborhood?
Bill Hill

If you have a mailbox out front, just stencil the name

H. Lecter

on it and talk to her about loud lambs you'd like to silence....

Lloyd

You should make a piece offering of your used motor oil, old thermometers and batteries, and that nasty green piece of e-coli infested red meat in the back of your fridge for her compost bin.

Some people are really crazy.

What's wrong with old thermometers? I just threw like 20 of them into the recycling. They were mostly busted so I figured they would clean up the little bit of liquid on them and recycle the glass.

Your neighbor is un-American. You are contributing to the US economy by buying Round-Up and rubber mulch. What more does she want? In fact, you are recycling by using the rubber mulch. Anyway, her taste is all in her mouth.ÂBlack and white is so much more modern than plain old ubiquitous brown mulch.ÂGag!!!

Really, you need to take Nosy Nellie in hand and show her the error of her ways. Perhaps if you get up very early on a Saturday morning (maybe 6 a.m.), you can help her out by getting out your leaf blower and blowing your leaves and her filched bags of leaves into the street. You will save her some time and at the same time, it would be very neighborly of you.

You also need to invite her to your parties. Give her a Miracle Gro Margarita to loosen her up, and then discuss gardening. I think she will eventually come around. It just may take some time.

"I've found that I can plant a lot less seedlings that way---the mulch giving the illusion of a full bed when in fact I've only planted a six-pack."

LOL, now that is really innovative ann, a fantastic gardening tip we should all be using ;)

"Everyone admired my Salvia bed last year, which was really just a single blue salvia planted in front of a mirror and surrounded by Goodyear's Royal Blue."

now that is just is outstanding work LOL

While she's at your party and sipping the MG margarita you could also offer to share the 50 lb. bag of Sevin dust you won as the door prize at the Salvia Lovers Club luncheon last week. Suggest she apply a daily, liberal dusting early in the morning when all those nasty bees and other buzzing things are pestering her plants.

Oh, and that case of recalled Dursban you have been saving back? A bottle of it and a decorative ziplock bag of Milorganite would make a great Welcome Wagon gift for all the new neighbors!

PJ is a good example of why this earth is in trouble.

Kimmsr, you beat me to it. Every time I read something like this I'm glad I don't have neighbors.

PJ:

Man, what a pain to live next to somebody like that! I bet that lousy neighbor of yours grows all kinds of crap, like weird colored tomatoes. Bleech...

What's wrong with going down to the good ole Walmart and buying whatever they sell? If those cardboard tomatoes where good enough for our parents, why aren't they good enough for that nasty neighbor of yours!

Have you considered moving into a new neighborhood with an iron clad HOA who would stamp out all of that unamerican behavior?

Best wishes to all,

another PJ

Report that nosey neighbour to Homeland Security for stockpiling nitrates nitrites explosives. While she's visiting Gitmo, hire contractors to haul away all that messy organic trash. Then, pave her yard.

In the long run she'll thank you.

All the best,
-Patrick

p.s. Good to see you here again, Pj. :)

i think you should team up with the guy who asked advice on making smelly compost to keep his neighbor away. (it was the FUNNIEST post i'd read in forever). one excellant suggestion was to chop off the neighbor's head and put it on a spike to end the problem AND scare off other pesky neighbors. considering your neighbor's proclivities, maybe she'd appreciate the "natural" deterrant!

PJ why are you spending money on six packs of plants? There are some great plastic flowers around nowadays and they only need a bit of a rinse a couple of times a year to last for ages. Even better, your garden will look neat and tidy all year round while your neighbour's is going through all those tedious seasonal changes - you know - the bud thing, the birds nesting thing, leaf fall and all that other natural mess.

PJ, are you vacuuming your yard every day too? Are you spot spraying weeds in your neighbor's yard when they aren't looking?

For I moment, I thought you might be my neighbor, too.

treeinnj, thank you! I'm not sure quite what you mean, though: what exactly is great? The nice combacks I give my neighbor?

annpat, you have opened my eyes. Colored rubber mulch! I Googled the possibilities: there's a "grass green" color, for example, that I could spread over my entire yard. I could be forever free of that annoying grass. And your idea for simulating a full bed of salvia with Royal Blue mulch and mirrors is pure genius. I would dearly love to see the Blaze Orange marvel in your yard; thank you for the invitation. I trust you'll ask me (again) to be the keynote speaker at the GWM convention this year? Have your girl call my girl.

billhill, I'm sure I lived in the neighborhood first; you know where I live, right? it's in the house with the beautiful, low-maintenance yard with all the bright colors.

pt03, what an excellent idea.

grayentropy, I've been wondering what to do with that E. coli-enhanced red meat in my fridge. Nellie would love it for her pile.

gratefulgardener3300, beats me. I never bother with that silly recycling stuff. That's just for hippies and, and ... you know, other weirdos.

trancegemini, is annpat your new role model, too? I'm going to copy her idea.

redthistle, your idea to help Nellie put her leaves in the road was most excellent. Better yet, maybe I could kill some of her grass for her and get her a bunch of "laughing lilac" rubber mulch for her birthday present.

digdirt, how'd you know about my stash of Dursban? And I'm curious about your lumping Milorganite in with it. Isn't Milorganite some of that so-called natural fertilizer? (But yuck! why anybody'd put composted human waste on their lawn is beyond me.)

kimmsr and robinmaine, whatever do you mean?

nutmeghill, you nailed it: Nellie grows green speckled tomatoes, orange ones, almost black ones, even little yellow pear-shaped ones. What is up with that? And what a good idea you had about moving into one of those subdivisions with an HOA! Nellie'd try to get in, though.

Patrick, I like your thinking. Spreading rubber mulch throughout her yard would be cheaper than paving it, though. (Good to see you, too, Patrick; I bet you all missed my little voice of reason.)

tristate, what was the name of that thread, do you remember? BTW, compost sure is smelly, isn't it?

Flora, you're right! Plastic flowers would also provide much-needed spots of color against the white of winter. And I'd only have to buy 'em once!

You soil people sure are helpful. Thanks so much! I'll never say bad things about you again.

~pj
pleasantly surprised

pj=pleasingly jocular.

I enjoyed this thread.

tj

Those who are unfamiliar with PJ should immediately go to the Mid-Atlantic Gardening FAQ Page, click on the "You Know You are a Compost Whacko When......." link, and then scroll or search down to "Gold Leaves and Brown".

It's well worth it.

All the best,
-Patrick
(pj also displays most excellent choice in birthdays)

PJ's post could possibly be the best thing I have ever read in this forum, I am still laughing. Thanks PJ.

Annpat forgot to mention one of the most important features of the colored rubber mulch. It NEVER gets soggy in the compost pile.

PJ (What a FANTASTIC name)

Obviously, great minds think alike!

I'm glad I'm not the only one who can't stand those hippy, dippy new fangled plain old weird tomatoes those organic types keep trying to force down our throats!

And it's about time someone would admit to the beauty of colored stones, rubber mulch, and best of all plastic flowers!

That sounds so good, I'm going to rip out those nasty real flowers of mine that just attract bugs and plant a whole bed of plastic flowers! They'll just be the envy of my neighborhood.

The other PJ

I like to make a mosaic of sliced baquettes and spread that around the bottoms of my trees.

OW OW OW
My brain, it's melting.

ialbtc

If you slice them the long way, you can make daisy patterns. And use the green moldy ones for the leaves.

All right, doris, all right. I've already had to report you once.

Doris you are such a cut-up.

paulns, no matter how you slice it, Doris is a cut-up.

I wonder if these poppy seeds rolls would grow poppies?

Geeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssssssssssssssssss. Now you folks are cracking me up.

What is rubber mulch and preen?

rdak,

Only two of my favorite things. You, too, could love them more than anything.

~pj

Hey, I just remembered something I wanted to ask.

My nosy neighbor lets her dogs poop all over my yard. (See, everyone in her household gives me s***.)

Is it OK if I fling the poop into her compost bin?

~pj
puzzled

better idea, take some old bagqueettes and make some poopy seed samiches....

OMG, PJ, I thought you were serious, LOL. The whole time I'm reading this thread, I'm thinking is this person for real???

LOLOLOLOLOL
Melissa

You could mix the dog poop with her tomato soil when she wasn't looking.

pjwould it's good to see you back here. I don't know how long you've been checking in but you may be interested to know doris and annp have this forum-hopping Professor Moriarty and Sherlock Holmes thing going on. I'm not sure who is who (regarding the original characters, some have theorized, chillingly, that they are the same person...) but I'm working up the nerve to write a few stories based on their deadly contest, eg. The Compost of Fear, The Final Pile, The Illustrious Sog of Bread.

paul, don't make me go google planarian again.

Planerians are CARNIVORES and do not care about bread, except on picnic holidays, where they make slug sammiches.

:)

pj- the "severed head on a spike idea" for how to handle a bad neighbor came from a follow up to the "How to make a people repelling compost" thread posted by nick_1212 on april 21, 2008. it's all hilarious b/c i think the post was sincere- then quickly degenerated into mayhem.
enjoy!