Alternate post title: He Did It To Me Again.

The butterfly bush (or as my husband refers to it… “that butterfly monster”) turned out to be the fastest growing, most furiously blooming plant I have ever encountered. It smells wonderful, attracts butterflies by the hundreds through the spring/summer but has to be trimmed back several times a year. Emphasis on “several times a year.”

We’ve had an unusually warm January with some beautiful sunny days and since we had a new lilac tree to plant we spent last Saturday in the yard.

We cleaned up anything dead-ish, dug up an old rosemary plant that had died, cleaned out weeds that were trying to poke up and trimmed some trees and bushes. Then my husband said, “Oh, I trimmed up the butterfly bush…” I don’t recall anything he said after that because I took one look at my butterfly bush and made this face:

My butterfly bush should look like this (not now, it’s winter, but when it’s not winter it should):

Remember the last time he did this to me?

“YOU’RE TRYING TO KILL HER!!!!!!” I might have said a little too loudly, I think I could hear the neighbor’s curiosity pique from two, possibly more, yards away.

“I am not trying to kill it.” He said in a that stop-being-so-dramatic tone. “Your butterfly bush was trying to eat my redwoods… again.”

Admittedly, the first time those redwoods were still a little on the scrawny side and I could see why Mike was being overly ridiculous, dramatic and a complete sissy la la concerned about my beautiful butterfly bush appearing to attempt to dwarf his beloved redwoods.

This time? Those redwoods are HUGE. They are easily as tall as a two-story house and my precious butterfly bush?

NOT SO MUCH.

I stopped talking to him. I might have muttered something about doing a little pruning of my own on his precious sago palm which looks like this:

Compared to my butterfly bush, which for reference, looks LIKE THIS:

A little while later my husband said, “I put fertilizer on all the plants. I fertilized the butterfly bush too, I just wanted to make sure you know that I am NOT trying to kill your plant.”

I can’t say the same for the plant, Mike. I suggest you start sleeping with one eye open.