little girl gardening

I'm in Charlotte, getting to know Noah

and lending a hand.

The newborn days ... how quickly I forget

a mother's extreme fatigue and adjustments,

a father being spread so thin,

the babe's constant needs to eat and sleep,

plus two toddlers in the mix.

When I arrived yesterday, three-year-old Ari

was proud and pleased to show me their garden.

I rather like these photos of her ...  



Plenty of pea-harvesting.

I love how she is already adept at this!

Yes, she was in her swimsuit.

A three-year-old is much too busy to

change clothes as she goes to a new activity.

I suppose most grandmothers take photographs of

their grandchildren's faces.

But I have a thing for the tops of their heads.

So soft and sweet and irresistible.

Ashlyn, nearly two.

And the newest head of all,
Noah Daniel, 5 days old.
Oh my goodness look at that hair.
I'm in love.

My dad, who lives in Nashville,

is declining bit by bit. I'm trying to focus completely

on my grandchildren, but a portion of my heart is with my dad.

It is very hard to feel pulled, physically and emotionally,

in several directions.

Today, Lord. Give me strength only for today. 



hope in a hole

What happens this time of year is that I plan my days completely around the weather.

I assume the worst about November: a dark, dreary month.

I hold no illusions: the cold and wet will move in soon.

But so far we've had seven pretty spectacular days.

And so, turning my back on my holidays-looming-to-do-list,

I go buy flower bulbs and get out in the yard. Half-price bulbs at that!

This afternoon I raked leaves and pulled the dead - sniff - hostas and planted

daffodils and iris to my heart's content.

With each bulb dropped in a hole in the flower beds,

I imagine a glorious show in April.

Hope's around the corner!

gratitude challenge day 7 - I'm thankful for stellar November days.

I take back my comments about nasty November-ness! 

Thank you God, for these warm, delicious days.

hearty, happy hostas

Spring was chillier than usual,

then warmer than usual,

then wetter.

Whatever the weather,

my hostas loved it!

If I were a cardinal or a chipmunk,

I'd take a sip from here...

Notice the three varieties in this photo?



June gardening

Typically in Ohio, we gardeners (and to call myself one is stretching it) must cajole and wait and hope against the cold that our gardens will actually look like something by June. People throwing graduation parties bite their nails, hoping the flower beds won't be embarrassingly bare as the partiers parade through.

While we had our fair share of chilly temps this spring, the rain also fell and fell and fell, all to the great glee of my hostas and other tender spring sprouts.

So here I am on June first, giddy over the hostas in particular, which could be mistaken for a South American jungle specimen. Ooooo, how they love the wet and cool.

spring scurry

We neighbors are scurrying,

ok we're getting older so we don't scurry as fast.

But we scurry nevertheless

with our shovels and hooley-hoes (as Lynn calls them)

and bags of organic matter and mulch.

One of us pulls in our drive, throws open the back hatch

and the others of us ooh and ahh

over the fresh-from-the-nursery

burst of greenery and color:

impatiens, petunias, lavender, thyme and gerber daisies.

It's spring on our street

and how we love to scurry

and turn the earth

and plant new perennials,

 placing them all just so.

And giving in to just a few annuals

for color.

in the garden

White coral bells upon a slender stalk.

Lily-of-the-valley deck my garden walk!

I remember this little song from earliest childhood.

Mom sang it as a lullaby as I drifted off to sleep.

But it would be many years before I'd come to appreciate

the delicate beauty of lily-of-the-valley,

when my new daughter-in-love, Jenny, re-introduced them to me.

We transplanted some in my shade garden

three years ago. They are right at home there.

Thank you, Jenny!

tomatoes vs. friends

Here it is, August 24, and I all I have to show for my gardening is one tomato. It's a beauty, as tomatoes go. But just ONE?

I used to grow a decent crop of tomatoes prior to pushing out the back of our house ten years ago. Encroaching closer to the pine trees, the previously sun-splashed south side of the house grew ever shadier. And tomatoes absolutely must have lots of sun.

The front yard is more open, but faces north. And who grows tomatoes in the front yard? Oh. My neighbor Lynn, that's who. Sorry, Lynn! You may grow tomatoes wherever you choose.

Some of you readers might be aghast to learn we live in a SUBDIVISION here in Ohio. Yeah, the S-word! Country people, I know a few, just can't fathom living in a subdivision.

Our lot might not lend itself to grand gardens. But we have grown something else over the past 20 years. Blessed, awesome friendships with our neighbors.

And I'll take friends over home-grown tomatoes any day.

yard puttering

My dad used to say, "I'm going out to putter in the yard." Maybe it's our farming roots. His dad was a farmer and my dad was also farmer until I was about three years old.

My mom once told me that while she gardened, she'd set me on a blanket outside with our dog as my bodguard. Crazy! Six months old, rolling around on a blanket in the Tennessee summer. That was my early life. Now, fifty years (or so) later, I love nothing better than to be outside puttering. Springtime is glorious for this pursuit. Even on our small city lot, the puttering opportunities are endless.

Trimming. Digging. Planting. Edging. Mulching. Watering. Transplanting. And in general just poking and peeking around the flower beds to see what's up. Without fail, I call over one of my neighbors, Dove or Lynn, to identify a new shoot: weed or flower. Dove says, "everything's a weed." I'm not sure what she means, but I've gotten better at recognizing things.

There's something basic and earthy about dirty fingernails and grungy socks and my jeans all smeared up with topsoil. Mmmmmmmm.

The down side of yard puttering is that the inside of the house goes to pot. Yesterday I found a souring, damp load of clothes still in the washer from who-knows-what-day. I prowl the freezer for a quick meal to allow for more yard puttering. I haven't vacuumed in ages. Not to mention this blog has to take a rest.

But my flower beds are looking dandy.

the amazing hosta

What was I thinking 23 years ago? We moved into a rambling old house in Defiance, Ohio, and I proceeded to yank out the hostas in the back yard. They were an oddity to me: weird, spiky shoots poking out of the ground by mid-April.

Where were hostas in my youth? I roamed our yard and woods as a girl, never spotting a single hosta. Pity the lack of them.

In googling around, I learned that hostas originated in Asia, but good grief, were brought to Europe in the 1700's so surely they've been in the U.S. awhile. Just not in my plant-o-sphere.

Now my four babies are grown and I marvel at my babies in the flower beds: hostas in various stages of earth-poking, in fresh kitchen-wall-greens and rich blue-greens. Broad leaves and variegated slim leaves. Tiny new babies seeking a place in the garden, and granddaddy hostas enjoying their established spots.

By July they will be glorious: a show of full foliage, overlapping and bursting over one another. And finally, their blooms will rise on swaying stems in the August breeze.

If you're prone to googling and hosta-learning, there is -for real - an American Hosta Society and evidently the hosta was named after an Austrian botanist, Nicholas Thomas Host.

Hail Mr. Host!