OcPd flowers and plants

[Prototypian]

This is a weird one but every time I've posted what I thought was a weird one, people have chimed in.   My family, as in the one I grew up with had a strong foundation in formal gardening at our homes, especially at my grandmother's formal home.   Bulbs, roses, greenhouse and topiaries and flowers everywhere all cared for immaculately.   

That's background.   So we inherited a tradition of flowers called amaryllis which are large bulbs at Christmas that sprout into trumpet shaped flowers.   They can be planted in landscapes.   My family would let them bloom, plant them in the landscape somewhere and sometimes in the future the various bulbs might bloom again.  That's it. 

Since we have been married there is an annual game that lasts months of determining exactly what to do with them.   In our home this means first letting them die to bent over husks of the 3-4 foot tall, dead flowers and not allowing anyone to cut the stalks off in case they might produce amaryllis seeds.    Then after several months of them sitting lifeless in pots well after the Christmas season you allow someone to move them into the back porch but to not touch them because you have a plan for where you want them to go.   Then next Christmas when we get the new bulbs and the old ones have either become dried husks you let your husband empty out the red and green pots and plant new ones.   We are now into the cycle of the dying flowe stalks all over the house.

One year I planted the bulbs in the wooded area near my workout shed/shop and have heard nothing but complaints about that being the wrong place for years but a few have bloomed back there!

We also have a small peach orchard of 6 trees.   The ag extension agent has a pruning recommendation in January where you should cut off primary branches less than a pencil thickness and branches growing inward toward the center of the trees.    We are not allowed to even consider pruning because of two reasons 1) we could do it wrong and 2) what if we get fewer peaches.   Year after year major branches crack and break because of too large a fruit harvest and weak branches.

I sometimes wonder if a surgeon had OCPD would they refuse to do a heart transplant because the old heart could still work.

[Poison Ivy]

Wow. Plants and flowers should bring joy, not stress such as this!

[SparkStillLit]

Not ocpd in my house but just PD. Much stuff and nonsense about my plants and my fliwers and herbs and the location abd how they allear, and every time I try to plant something new, the trees, my fruit tree which has since bizarrely died. Updh does not engage in gardening at all, but is usually highly critical of my choices, or can't seem to understand that you don't move stuff around at will or how unwilling I am to rip things out at his whim.

[aPrettyNiceGuy]

My uOCPDw (soon to be ex)  has raged (yeah, like a narcissist) at me for planting flowers, for planting them wrong,  spending too much or not using a coupon, for not doing them deep enough or symmetrically...I've gotten her favorite scented ones and that still draws fire every year (because they grow too big).  Mind you, she is not doing the gardening...these were just things I did on my own to make the yard look nice.

She has dug up my projects from the garden I created, moved individual flowers, returned some to the store, criticized every aspect of my work, and then every year after that she'll criticize me for not watering them enough.   

She wants the house in the divorce...part of me wants to take the plants and flowers with me.   

[Prototypian]

She wants the house in the divorce...part of me wants to take the plants and flowers with me.   

I'll gladly give up the house or two just to be away from her!    I'd miss a few things but it's a grand and beautiful country with many nice places that are hopefully drama free.

[Cat of the Canals]

My dad has some OCPD traits, and he has fruit trees he is quite particular about. There's an active raccoon population where my parents live. It makes my dad so furious when the racoons steal the peaches, that he literally picks ALL of the peaches when they are still green just to keep the racoons from getting any of them. 

Also, my brother planted a few trees at his own house, and he has complained to me more than once about my dad trying to micromanage the tree care.

[SparkStillLit]

Oh HERE it is! I'm going to plant up my flower garden this year, and make my paths. HE is going to shut his yap, if not in reality, then I won't be listening to it at ALL.

[blunk]

Oh my goodness, I thought this was just my bpdxh. I planted bulbs along the front edge of our yard, near the fence line. Beyond that we had a retaining wall near the sidewalk, creating a nice little garden area. My favorite flower from that garden was the globe Allium, a huge purple puffball that sits on top of a thin stem.

The thing is, in the probably 4-5 years between when I planted them and when my x moved out, I never even got to see one of them. I would watch for them, start to see them coming in, and then he would report that he stepped on them, hit them with the weedwhacker, or say that the neighborhood kids probably picked them.

He took pride in having a "green thumb" while I admit to struggling with keeping houseplants alive. After each of these incidents he would tell me that I'm just not good at gardening. Eventually I realized that he would do his best to ruin anything that I looked forward to. Surprisingly enough, my Allium came in beautifully after my divorce was final.

[SonofThunder]

This is a weird one but every time I've posted what I thought was a weird one, people have chimed in.   My family, as in the one I grew up with had a strong foundation in formal gardening at our homes, especially at my grandmother's formal home.   Bulbs, roses, greenhouse and topiaries and flowers everywhere all cared for immaculately.   

That's background.   So we inherited a tradition of flowers called amaryllis which are large bulbs at Christmas that sprout into trumpet shaped flowers.   They can be planted in landscapes.   My family would let them bloom, plant them in the landscape somewhere and sometimes in the future the various bulbs might bloom again.  That's it. 

Since we have been married there is an annual game that lasts months of determining exactly what to do with them.   In our home this means first letting them die to bent over husks of the 3-4 foot tall, dead flowers and not allowing anyone to cut the stalks off in case they might produce amaryllis seeds.    Then after several months of them sitting lifeless in pots well after the Christmas season you allow someone to move them into the back porch but to not touch them because you have a plan for where you want them to go.   Then next Christmas when we get the new bulbs and the old ones have either become dried husks you let your husband empty out the red and green pots and plant new ones.   We are now into the cycle of the dying flowe stalks all over the house.

One year I planted the bulbs in the wooded area near my workout shed/shop and have heard nothing but complaints about that being the wrong place for years but a few have bloomed back there!

We also have a small peach orchard of 6 trees.   The ag extension agent has a pruning recommendation in January where you should cut off primary branches less than a pencil thickness and branches growing inward toward the center of the trees.    We are not allowed to even consider pruning because of two reasons 1) we could do it wrong and 2) what if we get fewer peaches.   Year after year major branches crack and break because of too large a fruit harvest and weak branches.

I sometimes wonder if a surgeon had OCPD would they refuse to do a heart transplant because the old heart could still work.

If my uPDw did what you described, here is the boundary what I would use to protect myself.  Let me add, your spouse is free to do what she desires, just as much as you are. 

1. At the beginning of the season, state that you will only be caring for 1/2 of the plants and she may choose a color (red or green). 

2. Explain that she may do anything she desired with her 50% of the plants after the holiday is over (specify an 'over' date that both can agree on) , and you will do the same.  That also then includes discarding if one chooses for their half.

3. Similar to your cooking experiences, state in advance that if she attempts to critique your desires, you will A: immediately discard your 50% and B: not be participating in the 50/50 project at all the following year. 

SoT.

[sevenyears]

Jsinjin - I hear you! We had a small plum tree in the backyard that had a fungus growing on its leaves (and on the plums). So, one late summer day after the plums had been harvested, I started cutting off the leaves that were worst affected by the fungus. He yelled so loud and frantically that I was killing the tree - to have heard him, you would have thought he was stopping a murder, not that a fungus was killing a tree. Oh good heavens.