Garden to-do list:

My Christmas vacation began today. I'm off work until January 2. Or possibly January 3 depending on how I feel when I wake up on January 2.

1) Finish cobblestone path. (Buy ~20 more cobblestones, est. $80)

2) Turn compost.

3) Prepare for roses. I want two. I want my neighbor's rose, but that idea was slightly rejected when it was last discussed and I feel stigmatized going forward with that plan. Although some people were rooting for me. My true friends, perhaps. My kindred spirits. Okay, getting over myself now.... My nursery will have roses in January. I need to put out the big pot I have in the garage and prepare soil for it. And I have to improve the soil presently in the other big pot already outside. And I have to pick the roses. Am I going to go in knowing what I want, or see what they have and buy what grabs me? Or should I buy them from the Botanical Garden? What about that Wayside Garden purple climber related to Sally...Holmes? Do I want that after all? Brainstorm roses.

4) Contemplate trellis design. I'm thinking three posts and a triangular top.

5) Hypertufa. Find desirable forms. Learn whether a 2-3' tall hypertufa column is a good idea or a bad idea.

6) Buy another heating pad for seeds. Also buy chains to hang the fluorescent lights in the garage lower (because I'm not buying another ladder to bring the seedlings higher). If that makes any sense.

7) Sow Asclepias in two big terracotta pots that I still need to buy.

8) Finalize seed sowing/germination calendar for 2007, and design vegetable garden concept. Emphasize hanging baskets, containers, trellises. Buy pumpkin seeds because Jack O'Lantern pumpkin seeds all rotted.