RIVER CITY JOURNAL: CALLAS AND DAISIES AND IMPATIENS AND PETUNIAS, OH MY

Yes, two adults who ought to know better went nuts this spring, putting big smiles on the faces of greenhouse owners.

Around our house, farm chores are in full swing. And we don't even live on a farm.

But there is dirt under our fingernails, and sweat on our brows, and aches in our places we didn't know we had.

Moving to a new home last fall, just in time for planting bulbs, was a busy time. But planting more than 300 bulbs doesn't really take all that long. More than that, the results this spring have been spectacular. Heck, it even looks like we knew what we were doing.

This spring, we've cut loose like a couple of kids in a candy store. The owners of garden stores, greenhouses, nurseries and landscape centers all have smiles on their faces. "Look," they say to each other, pointing to the cash register. "The Sullivans have been here. Again."

The frenzy of planting and landscaping is the result of living in an apartment for more than three years. And a lovely apartment it was too. But it had no yard. You remember our balcony gardening pursuits.

I happen to be one of those people whose No. 1 hobby is yard work. I like mowing the lawn. Give me a choice between four hours of weeding, trimming and plant care versus 18 holes of golf, and I'll usually choose to wear gloves on both hands and carry a hose and hoe instead of a driver and putter.

Which leads me to wonder if my grandiose plans to turn the county park around the Common Pleas Courthouse downtown into a championship golf course have been misdirected. Now that spring is here, I'm thinking more in terms of a botanical garden with reflecting pools and arboreta and endless beds of flowers where the public is invited to pick to its heart's content.

But that's another column.

Back to that space around our house we call "the yard."

There are magnificently huge trees in our yard, which means there is a lot of shade. That's good as far as the air-conditioning bill is concerned. But it throws a bit of a kink into landscape gardening.

As a result, we have created shade-garden areas around the house. We installed a new flower garden, complete with rock wall, in the only part of the yard that gets any decent sun. Fortunately for us, our brick patio is one area that gets good morning sun, so we have one long but narrow bed of flowers and several large containers for more blooming plants. We even have planters hanging from the brick walls of the garage.

Our motto: If you can get dirt to stick, you can grow flowers.

After we planted two new azalea bushes earlier this year (one was a wonderful gift) in addition to the two we inherited with the house, we heard about an azalea sale and went bonkers. We bought and planted 10 more azaleas.

My wife buys bedding plants by the flat. I lost count after 500 or 600 plants that we have installed in beds and growing areas. Many of them are, thank goodness, perennials, so we won't always have to plant that many.

We have flower pots hanging from the privacy fence along one side of the back yard. We have calla lillies, planted last fall against the advice of every expert we consulted, growing next to the limestone fence post from Lincoln County, Kan. We have ferns taken from the Ozark hills next to Kelo Valley in an area that defies grass. We have pansies blooming along one side of the family room that were planted before winter struck -- what winter? -- and have given us their bright smiles without stopping.

One minute we think there is not a single place left to stick another plant in the ground, and then we see a flat of something else or a flowering shrub or an exotic green thing that has no business growing in Southeast Missouri.

Take the lupines, for example. Quite by accident, we were in Wisconsin along the shore of Lake Superior a few years ago when the wild lupines -- acres and acres of them along the roads -- were in full bloom. We had never seen anything so breathtaking. But lupines prefer colder climes, and we never thought of growing them ourselves. At least not until we visited a greenhouse in the Ozarks where the owner, on a whim, decided to plant some lupine seeds just for the heck of it. They came up fine, and when we expressed our delight in seeing them, she sold us a couple. They are in our newest flower garden and, so far, are happy as can be.

Our feeling about flowers, lupines included, is that not all of them will turn into showy plants loaded with blossoms. But it won't be because we didn't give them a good chance.

Watch out. I can't count how many packages or varieties of zinnias my wife found to plant. They're out there germinating right now. If they grow, they will outnumber us about 9,000 to 1.

Can't wait.

During all of our recent hectic activity in the yard, I have been constantly reminded that planting a garden once upon a time meant vegetables. Potatoes in rows that looked miles long to a young boy with a hoe in his hand. Enough tomato plants for our families, our relatives and neighbors and enough left over for every hungry person in China. Green beans and okra. Cucumbers and peppers. Sweet corn. Carrots and radishes and lettuce.

My wife couldn't resist putting a row of lettuce in one of the flower gardens. It's doing quite well, thank you.

Just as soon as I figure I can grow vegetables cheaper than the supermarket can sell them to me, I'll plant a big vegetable garden.

Until then, bring on the flowers.

~R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.