Braving the Inferno?

In a recent post, Colleen over at In the Garden Online talked about love for lawns--and her lack thereof. I always enjoy reading her gardening thoughts, but one partial sentence in this post really snagged my attention: "...and I don't know if I am brave enough to try to garden in my two hell-strips."

As I read that line, my stomach dropped at the same time my brain said, "Oh wow... just like me!" It was one of those moments when you awaken to the knowledge that you have a certain, um, problem that you have been in denial about for a long time.

See, on a certain level I come across as being very brave and capable. Maybe a little headstrong. And if you ask certain people--like my boyfriend and my Mom--you might even get the mistaken idea that I can be a little stubborn sometimes. ;)

I'm an interesting enough person, I think. I've been brave enough to do things like paint my stairwell and upstairs hallway monk's robe orange. So you can imagine that the realization that I have not even made plans for planting my hellstrip simply because I'm chicken did not really sit well with me.

I want to garden the... well, hell... out of my hellstrip, I really do. I want a hellstrip with interest, like the ones that Susan showed over on Garden Rant. I want one as bursting with color, as tapestry-like, and as xeric as the Inferno Garden over at High Country Gardens.

I am absolutely fine with people wondering why the crazy lady down the street would replace her "treelawn" grass with plants that people might walk on. And frankly, nobody would walk on mine much anyway because the city in its infinite wisdom planted a too-large tree in the middle of my hellstrip. It prevents people from opening their passenger doors when they park between my driveway and my neighbor's.

Other people in my suburb have planted their hellstrips with everything from scads of annuals to herb gardens. My suburb is old enough, and the yards small enough, that nobody has ever considered instituting any kind of constricting neighborhood covenant here... so planting my hellstrip would be neither illegal nor unprecedented.

Did I mention yet that I'm really a brave person? But apparently not quite brave enough to plant my hellstrip just yet. Can somebody please explain to me why that is? I'll pull up a couch, lay down and listen if you have the time...