Denver, Colorado, crapped on all my gardening dreams. 
Plant a blue hydrangea in Denver and it will bloom pink in rebellion like a teenager drinking straight from their father’s scotch bottle. The soil isn’t the right pH, you have to drop some acid around that shrub to get it the color of Kurt Cobain’s eyes. (See what I did there?) We’re talkin’ bag after bag of chemicals each and every spring, you’ll become the Walter White of gardening. It’s expensive.
Bamboo was my other horticultural sob story in the Mile High City. The few varieties that survive there only do so with a level of special treatment and attention that would make Gwyneth Paltrow uneasy. You basically have to import a small section of China and freeze it in time in 
your backyard. You end up sinking more worry and maintenance into that tiny patch of land than your entire house and your water bill resembles the dancing waters of the Bellagio.
So, I resigned myself to twelve summers of decorative grasses until I unpacked a U-Haul in my first Oregon driveway. After stocking the fridge and getting internet installed, I looked for bamboo and blue hydrangeas, because gardener.
Enter the Portland Japanese Garden, destroyer of credit cards. Everyone said it was gorgeous. I mean, okay, if you scrape off the nattering tourists, muffle the dull roar of downtown traffic, and pretend you didn’t just drop $17 for admission and metered parking, it’s gorgeous. I found that the trick is to focus on landscaping details and ignore the family of five stomping past you, screaming, “Mommy, I saw a fish, I saw a fish!” Also, avoid the gift shop, you don’t need that level of financial self-flagellation on your day off.
I anticipated thick forests of tremendous green bamboo weaving back and forth in the breeze, all Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Instead, I found a few patches here and there, looking like an unsuccessful hair plug operation. Japanese sister-city, my ass. If there were any hydrangeas, 
they hid ’em in the back because there was nary a blue ball in sight.
I tried a new strategy: garden centers. This was a bad call. Have you ever seen a toddler walk down the candy aisle? I lost my frickin’ mind. There were oceans and curtains of hydrangeas, all colors, all kinds. I wanted twenty of each, I was like an alcoholic at Oktoberfest. I imagined myself falling backwards into a gigantic spongy pile of blue hydrangea blossoms all around my house. Then, I turned over the price tag on one of those tiny little pots….
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
Long story short, I learned you can grow any hydrangea from a cutting. A couple trips to the local cemetery after dark with a hand pruner and I was in business. Just kidding–it was the middle of the day. Being poor as dirt is ironic for a gardener but it motivates one’s inner pirate.
But with bamboo, you can’t just roll up with a machete and some rooting powder, you must pilfer from the rhizomes….
rhizome [rahy-zohm] noun An insidious, stronger-than-steel root that laughs at your puny shovel and tiny arms and turns all pruning efforts into Saw III.
Happily, the Bamboo Garden Nursery was like falling down a psychedelic 
rabbit hole and coming out the other end in China, no acid required. They had over 300 varieties of bamboo I couldn’t afford on 20 acres (they’ve been adding to it every year like a botanical episode of Hoarders), an overwhelming fact necessitating golf carts and guided tours. Luckily, they were willing to stop the cart whenever I wanted to bound from my seat and fondle things. I spewed questions.
“Will this grow tall enough to shield me from the homeowner’s association?”
“Can I use Miracle-Gro to get this effect by the end of the summer?”
“Oh, my god, it’s like a watercolor. I’ll need 57 of these.”
“Is that foliage thick enough to block the smell of my neighbor’s dryer sheets?”
“That looks like milk chocolate. Doesn’t it look like milk chocolate? Now, I want some milk chocolate.”
“If I do the entire front lawn in this stuff, I’ll never have to mow again.”
“Just load this one in the back of my truck. Yes, all of it.”
“I’ll take one of these, too. How much? Well, I only really need one kidney…”
“Look, a water feature. Gimme 60 lily pads and a bullfrog.”
“Okay, two bullfrogs, I like a little harmony. Wait a minute, what’s that in the undergrowth?”
“Oooo, she’s gorgeous! Is she friendly?”
“That’s a yes.” (Commence fondling.)
Her name was Luna and the staff laughed that she was so friendly, she’d gotten into customer’s vehicles before and ridden halfway home with them before anyone found out.
This could work because I needed a tiger for my new jungle. Of course, I had to warn her that said jungle would most likely start out as a discount hair plug of three green stalks in the corner of the backyard. Luna understandably rejected this offer.
(sigh) Back to the cemetery.
August 6, 2016
All Thoughts Work™ Outdoors 5 