eOpicle

I used to choose plants the same way people choose lottery numbers: emotionally, irrationally, and with absolutely no understanding of probability. I’d walk into a garden center like I was entering a casino designed by Mother Nature herself. Bright colors everywhere. Fancy tags. Plants named things like Midnight Velvet Dreamscape or Sunset Firestorm Deluxe . Every shrub sounded like either a craft beer or a rejected Marvel villain. And every single time, I fell for it. I bought plants because they looked optimistic. I bought flowers because bees seemed excited about them. I bought one ornamental grass because the tag described it as “architectural,” which apparently means “expensive hay.” Three weeks later, my yard would resemble a failed diplomatic experiment between life and death. Half the plants would collapse dramatically like Victorian aristocrats with tuberculosis. The other half would mutate into aggressive territorial warlords determined to annex the entire flower bed. Me...