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I purchased my first home in the middle of February 1995 in northern Canada. As you would expect the yard was buried under several feet of snow. I didn't really begin to consider the gardening possibilities or the toil that lay under the white stuff, until sometime in late April as it began to recede with the spring sun and rain.

Gardening had always been something that was relaxing and somewhat spiritual in my imagination. A gardener was an older lady wearing a sun hat, toting a basket of tools, and lovingly tending roses or begonias. Gardening was easy; my gran had made it look that way with her outrageously beautiful balcony garden. My mom had done all the gardening work in our family home, so that definitely looked easy to me. That first summer of home (and garden) ownership I would learn that everything I thought I knew was utter myth, and I would learn it the hard way.

What the thaw finally revealed was a novice's complete nightmare. The "garden" consisted of dead grass, three trees, two of which were infested with carpenter ants, and no flowerbeds. Not one. Green thumbs must be genetic, I thought, so faith in my family tree inspired me to get busy.

Lesson number one seemed simple enough to master; a garden needs a good lawn. Dead, grey grass is no complement to flowers and shrubs. So I set about trying to make grass grow. Luckily for me, my neighbour and good friend had a lush lawn and was happy to dispense advice and some equipment. I used her mower to mulch and remove the dead stuff. I bought some fertilizer on her recommendation get the one with the highest first number. Not sure what that meant, I did as instructed and used her spreader to feed the grass. I watered all night and hoped for the best.

Soon enough, I found out that you need to cut grass a lot, especially grass that's been heavily watered and loaded with nitrogen. Lesson number two was a bit more difficult; gardens require more than just some tools in a basket. Not feeling comfortable borrowing my friend's mower all summer, I made the trip to the local hardware shops to buy my own. You know when you say, I only need a basic model, no one believes you? And worse, you start to get convinced that bells and whistles make the machine. You never need just the one bit of equipment you set out to buy, either. Never. Turns out, I absolutely had to have a trimmer. More than $500 lighter, I had only just begun to spend.

Now, to be fair, the mower was a great investment, and it lasted longer than my ten-year

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