scruples
I'm not good at killing plants. Not like our new neighbors, who think nothing of taking down a dozen 50+ year, 100+ foot pines (thats over 500 years and 1,000 feet of tree!), along with countless smaller trees and underbrush, in order to create a back lawn. How can you cut down trees in spring?! I can't. I can barely even pull weeds, and definitely not if there's any doubt about what they're going to turn out as. They might be beautiful flowers!
I made some effort today to sort out mess that is out strawberry patch, moving some of the best-looking plants to a brand new location, prepared expressly for them, where they will have all the straw they need while being prevented from spreading all over the place and getting in the way of the other plants. However, when 28 of the best-looking plants were reposing gracefully in the new bed, there were still approximately one million back in the original spot, where I hope to someday plant something other than strawberries. But could I just throw the rest away? I could not!
You might think that, since the 28 in one spot and the million in the other are all the descendants of a mere twelve plants that I bought two or three years ago, I'm already ahead of the game even if I have to thin the herd considerably. But I'm not sure if the new beds will be any productive! I'd hate to get rid of the original bed, only to have something go wrong with the new one. So I spend more time trying to find spots for each and every one of the sweet little plants, and the lettuces and spinaches go unplanted. Who knew gardeners had to be so ruthless!