The Worst Of Errors...

Mr. You-know-who never seems to miss an opportunity to remark upon every single infraction of mine he spies in the Garden. He tells everyone about them. I think he is a yard sadist. However, I refuse to be a lawn masochist. I have found Refuge in a newly devised Law of Gardening. I wrote it...

Those who do stuff in the Garden are forgiven of any Errors & Other Horticultural Outrages... by the Love of Our Almighty God!!!... and thus, are protected from Any & All Comments & Commands of those who don't... 

It ain't Mr. You who wields the weed-whacker in Our Garden... risking Life & Limb while accidentally wiping out an entire phalanx of tuber-roses where chickens once roosted. No. He ONLY Points & Commands remediation. And, if he does so deem to take shears to hedge, I am the one who has to pick up his mess... thank you so very much.
Since I AM THE ONE who does The Stuff in the Garden, I have, naturally, developed quite A History of Infractions. Two and a half years of them. Let me say... previous to this little adventure of Il Poggiolo & its 1000 square meters of terraced Mother Earth, I had only mowed grass and that was 45 years ago to earn The Meager Allowance allotted me by My Work-ethic-Corporate-Captain Father... 

yes, I have killed plants with the weed-whacker. I have run-over a few with the lawn-mower too. I have over-fertilized & over-watered. I have also under-fertilized & under-watered. I have planted God's Flora on slopes where the water passes right by them or, in spots which become Laghi Maggiori... or, big lakes... when it pours down rain. I have planted bushes too close together or too far apart for our barrier-wall of green. I have neglected to put stakes to brace trees from the Winds of Winter. But, nothing beats these many Disgraces than The One Major Error... 

of seeding clover!!!
I had practice. The run-up to The Clover Fiasco was the seeding of a cows-eat-it blade grass. I don't know what possessed me. We don't even have cows. I must have been overly concerned about The Big "E" word... Erosion. The local Consorzio Agricola... or, the agricultural co-op... unaware of My Ignorance about grasses, yet available to please even though given meager information, delivered a grass-seed which sinks its roots ASAP & grows with or without benefit of watering. You have to cut it... dammit!!! Basically, I seeded a kind of iron re-inforced cement in grass form as an erosion deterrent for which, I will be forever sorry. Luckily, it is contained to only certain areas of the Garden.
That was all before the re-construction of the Garden's many terraces. The Erosion Factor quadrupled.
With the help of a friend, we returned to the Consorzio Agricola for a kind of grass which would put down its anti-erosion roots BUT would not need cutting. I came home with a dwarf clover. Well, at least, that is how it would be translated into English. Great!!! However, I discovered... TO MY TOTAL ALARM!!!... that no cutting is necessary ONLY if you happen to like clover a foot high!!! The label should have said some oxymoron, such as... Long-necked Dwarf Clover. I now have to cut the damn stuff, for example, planted in between lavender, planted to forestall erosion, with either a damn pair of scissors OR rip-out the three-leafed Sequoias with My Bare Hands. I am toying with The Other Option... more drastic... of yanking the whole lot of clover & attendant plants and start all over again. Next year, thank you. In the meantime, suffering the Slings  & Errors of My Gardening Ways, I have enjoyed the psycho/physical-satisfaction of yanking clover up by its three leaf throats. So far, ain't seen one with four. And, I hope I don't ever!!! The Worst Year of My Life happened right after I found an innocent four-leaf clover in the grassy fields outside the Gonzaga Palazzo Te in Mantua. Other Errors. Gads.