After years of resisting gardening because I know little about it, I have finally given in. There is frankly no easier way to complicate our lives and spend more money than by taking up gardening. But first, let me suggest a few precautionary steps you will want to take before you plant your first expensive shrub or start that pasture of a lawn you dream of owning.

First: Be certain to choose an uneven, even hilly lot. This of course adds many steps to your efforts-mostly uphill. Wheelbarrows are expensive and the only effective way of moving around the bags of fertilizer, soil amendment, mulch and fill dirt you will need to tame the terrain. Of course you could hire this done and spend your money even faster.

Solving drainage problems, basement leaks and building retaining walls will strengthen you for the work to come and familiarize you with the use of credit cards in ways you never imagined, having previously only used them for vacations in the Bahamas or for the new windows or roof to replace those that had to to be replaced despite their twenty- five year guarantees.

Second: Where we live, everyone has rocky and hard- packed clay soil, so if you want to fit in, you must take on this challenge. Preparing the soil for planting is simple -dig it out and throw it away, replacing it with the soil builders mentioned in step one.

Third: A natural stand of old trees offers many opportunities for disposing of your children’s college fund. Even the smallest of these Oaks, Poplars and Hickory trees (no matter how small now) will grow large enough to require serious pruning or even removal in no time. While you are at work, sleeping or on vacation, they double their rate of growth.

If you are lucky enough to belong to a country club or yacht club, you will have already made friends with an arborist -or maybe you met him when you took your Jaguar in for service. Arborists used to live dangerously by climbing trees, but can now afford cranes and other equipment that quickly dispense with your overgrown backyard forest. Of course the arborist need not actually show up, sending his $15.00-an-hour underlings to remove a tree and grind up its stump in the twinkling of an eye. Be sure you are sitting down when the arborist’s “service coordinator” hands you the bill.

Forth: Because hiring a lawn service to mow, fertilize, seed and aerate your lawn can amount to hundreds of dollars a month, you might be tempted to let it go at that -but no! Being a red-blooded guy or gal, you should first buy a cheap mower that breaks down frequently, one that will pull a garden harrow and a leaf collecting machine. Hope you are feeling better now -your aunt Sally left you a diamond broach that turned out to be worth $10,000. That will almost covered the cost of the new zero-turn mower.

Part of the life -affirming drama of maintaining a lawn is that your lawn service is able to discover a new species of grass- devouring insect with every new season, one previously unknown in many cases, but easily treated with a few hundred dollars worth of stuff that can be conveniently sprayed on your grass in as little a s fifteen minutes. And, naturally you will want to have him spray a pre-emergent to keep down the weeds, and later pay him to spray to kill the weeds that come up anyway.

Lawns are the gifts that go on giving. To think I might have chosen such a noble profession as a lawn care specialist. When I was twelve years old I bought a used mower for twenty-five dollars and cut grass all summer for five dollars a yard -unless it was larger than an acre, then I charged seven-fifty. Instead of an expensive education, I should have stuck with mowing lawns. Going into the lawn care business is the only way a regular guy can earn money to keep up his own suburban house and garden.

PS: Did I mention the seductive power of all the home and garden magazines that inspire new and expensive ideas?

Fifth: I am sure that refund check you got for overpaying your taxes seems like manna from heaven. But then you must ask yourself: “How can I possibly throw away five thousand dollars or more.” Why, you simply must buy the latest zero-turn mower with fifty horse power engine, and requiring more attachments than even the US Forestry Service can find uses for; or. build those raised beds for your vegetable garden; or install that much- needed fence to keep out the critters and assorted neighborhood pets . Even better: you could build that garden shed your partner has been hinting at. Or a green house so that you will not have to stop your gardening during the winter.

Last, and finally: If money disposal is a constant problem for you, chose a home near one of the big-box stores like Home Depot or Loews- these guys can separate you from your life savings faster than sending a teenage son or daughter off to college with a Visa Gold Card and a yellow convertible.