I have decided to give up on my dreams of gardening this summer.

Sometimes life just moves too fast for you to accomplish everything that you want to do. That seems to be the case this year, since my garden isn’t even prepared for planting and June is half over.

Instead, I have tried to focus on ornamental plants to get my green thumb fix. I have vowed to do a better job of watering my hanging baskets of flowers and to regularly deadhead my petunias. So far, I am doing a better job at those tasks than I usually do, but it isn’t up to the standard of growers like my sister-in-law, Marie Compston, whose flowers baskets always seem to flourish.

I also embarked on another gardening project. There is an area alongside the old store building on our property that gets battered by rain water running off the metal roof overhead. The soil is rocky, and because it a narrow strip on the north side of the structure, it is spongy and partially covered in moss, making it tough to mow.

For a couple of years now I’ve been trying to figure out what to do there. So, this spring I decided I would try planting hostas. I already have a few hostas in front of another building on that side of the property, and they grow to become enormous every year so I figured it was worth a shot.

I proceeded to search Amazon for mixed hostas and ordered two dozen of them. They arrived individually bagged with their roots surrounded in saw dust.

With my husband Mike’s help, I managed to plant them all over the course of a couple of evenings. That was a few weeks ago, and I am happy to report that it looks like my project might be a success. Every one of those plants has taken root and started to grow.

I am sure I will need to trim and pull weeds around them for the remainder of the current growing season, but I am hopeful that they will return next year and grow to be as large as my existing hostas. If that happens, they likely will control the grass and weeds simply by overshadowing them.

I know none of this will put any food on my table, but it satisfies my urge to dig in the earth and cultivate things. And, hopefully, it will help improve the overall appearance and ease of maintenance of our yard.

Sometimes you just have to make the best of things. Otherwise, that fast-moving thing we call life might just become overwhelming. Don’t dwell on disappointment. Instead, find another answer or another way to make your situation work for you.