I need bright colors and fragrances and miniature houses for fantasy.
I planted tulip bulbs and mums, almond trees, lilacs, and weeping cherries in yards no longer mine. My bleeding heart in Minnesota grew to a bountiful, huge bush. Neighbors asked me for slips from the plant. Some may flourish still.
In the northern states, I loved to watch the crocuses come up, then the daffodils. I’ve named tulips as my favorite flower. They are the first intense multi-colored swaths of spring, but I don’t know if I play favorites. The irises are so showy, with rich varieties as if the fashion plates of flowers.
I moved to the fecund growing climate of Oregon several years ago. This is the first spring I can plant. I asked for this ground-floor apartment in my complex. It is a hidden patio apartment at a dead-end. The manager said I could plant, but the plants don’t belong to me. But they never have been mine.
The sun hits here a few hours mid-day.
I have tilled the square patch of dirt and bought plants that love shade.
I have coral bells and a rhododendron, ferns, and a bleeding heart. Dianthus and ground covers will come later. I want color and fragrance and a little oasis in the shade. Maybe, later, I’ll look at hosta. I’ve never loved hosta, but I always had a sunny garden. One can learn to love the things that grow in shade.
I have friends who are master gardeners. I am not. I plant low-maintenance perennials. I love to tour gardens, and marvel at the gardeners who planned for height and blooming season and color and pattern and foliage and texture and all the calculus that goes into planting a great garden.
I love white gardens, though I have never had one. I have a beautiful bouquet of white roses on my desk, as I write this story.
I will buy more herbs at the farmers’ market. I have pots with rosemary and basil and parsley. I need to pot some mint, so it behaves and doesn’t spread, and a tomato or two.
So, the analogies are all here, aren’t they? We plant for others to enjoy, people we will never know. We have to change from full sun to shade and adjust our expectations for flowering and fruit.
I want to buy or make some little houses for a fairy garden, for my grandchild. Or for me to enjoy with my grandchild.
No matter what else is going on in the rest of life, talking about planting brings me joy.
Even in the shade.
Vicki
Loved this and as someone who’s always known I don’t have the patience or discipline to maintain much oof a garden I had host’s for years..until somehow they became unhealthy and I took them out. That being said I loved the wide variety of hosta’s and delighted in finding new ones. Maybe give them a try! I also love the idea oof the fairy garden. What fun for you and your granddaughter!
Jane Michaud
You’ve reminded me of a multistory fairy house in a tree that I helped one of my granddaughters make when she was eight or so. I still walk by that tree at the local park, hoping some other little tyke will build a fairyland there. You’ll have fun doing that with Frankie!
Cheryl West
I’ve always loved the plants that didn’t belong to me the best. In the Mojave desert we waited, hoping for a good bloom after enough rain, for a multitude of the desert’s wild flowers. Every couple of years the yucca and Joshua trees put out huge blooms. The datura are my favorites and I took seeds from them so I could have them the following spring on my desert property. The Mojave aster is another lovely flower, a purple sunflower that closes at night and is a host plant to caterpillars.
Now I live in Oregon and am delighted in discovering new wildflowers on my walks.
SingingFrogPress
Oh I love this. As we approach spring, I’ve begun some of the clearing out of last year’s growth from flower beds, and tending to what sprouts. There’s such a pleasure in planting and tending to green growing things that reward us with their flowerings, or the grace and beauty of their leaves.