This past weekend, my mom came into town, and we had the best time. She is so creative and she always made our home such a beautiful and wonderful place to live when I was growing up, and I know I take after her in my love for homemaking.
Until this weekend, I knew basically NOTHING about gardening. I didn’t know what ground cover was. I didn’t know that there are different kinds of garden clippers. I could barely tell the difference between a weed and a pretty plant (well, I still have trouble with that). We have a half acre of land with TONS of plants everywhere, and I would just look at it and feel overwhelmed, so I needed my mom to come from Texas to save me…and teach me how to have a green thumb.
I learned a few things about gardening:
1. It takes a lot of time. You can’t make plants grow faster, and you can’t make weeds stop growing (without some chemical help, at least). Gardening takes patience.
2. I need to take it a step at a time. I have so many parts of my yard that need love, but I can’t do everything at once. Mom helped me start slow and start with projects that I can manage.
3. There is so much to learn. I learned so much during our weekend crash course about different types of plants, what it takes to care for plants, when to cut back and when to let things grow, etc.
4. God rocks. And not like all the rocks that are scattered across my yard. Although He made those. No, God is amazing; He makes beautiful things. And plants are beautiful…and so unique, and they just grow all on their own. Some of them even have babies, and those babies grow. It’s really cool. And even when I trim bushes I’m not supposed to trim, new flower buds pop up and bloom despite the fact that I don’t know what I’m doing.
There are a lot of metaphors for life in gardening.
So, this weekend, we did a few things:
1. We cleared out the weeds and cleaned up two major beds in the backyard.
2. We moved plants around in a way that makes sense
3. We cleared and cleaned up the vines around the carport
4. We planted a few new things
5. We made plans for what I will work on in the future
The most immediate thing was to tackle the two most visible beds in the backyard, clear the weeds and intruding vines, and plant a few new things! Things are already feeling better. I also discovered that I have rosemary, lavender, and lots of hydrangeas!! You know you’re a grown up when you get excited about plants in your yard.
It might not look like much, but to me it means progress!
We spent Saturday morning at the Franklin Farmer’s Market where I picked up my first plant purchase: a Butterfly Bush. Isn’t it pretty?
Mom also brought some plants from her yard…one of which she has had since she first got married to my dad almost 29 years ago. So, we planted some Kolanche, and Katie Ruella, and two baby Red Bud trees which we planted in pots with the bottoms cut off so that we don’t mow over them while they grow up to be big beautiful blooming red bud trees.
I don’t want to bore you with too many pictures of plants. So I will leave it there for now. I’ll be back at some point to show you more garden progress.
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