An arcade in the garden

Gardening can sometimes feel like a game. 

It takes skill, effort and a time commitment — watching a plant grow, knowing that you've successfully balanced all of nature's variables, feels like a victory. Kind of like hitting the 3x multiplier on a pinball machine. 

Remember pinball? 

Gottlieb made the King Kool pinball
machine in the 1970s.

Back in a time before each child had a handheld game system, cellphone or iPad in his hand, kids used to pack arcades to spend some quality time with giant light-up machines, playing against their friends or  just against the machine to get the highest score. 

My favorite game was King Kool. The psychedelic Medieval theme was, well, cool. I could spend hours in a dark arcade, watching the flippers fling the ball across the backglass, the board lighting up as my score soared higher. A game of skill! the board exclaimed. Skill, indeed. 

These days, my skills are more natural. I've traded my hours inside for some quality time outdoors, but I can still spend hours in a dark place, since many of my favorite plants grow best in the shade. 

Nowadays, there's a new king of cool in my life — the king kong coleus. 

King kong coleus likes the shade,
similar to the cool environment of an arcade. 

The Kong rose coleus prefers shade or morning sun that lasts only a few hours and is not as hot as the afternoon sun. In time, they can grow big enough to provide their own shade. 

Now that I'm older, I get more enjoyment from the real life game of gardening. Seeing the results of my hard work in a colorful, healthy garden is a much better reward than bragging rights. And  now I'm old enough to drink wine to celebrate my victories.