I just finished planting the flower garden that surrounds our mail box. After two and a half hours of hard work, I am exhausted.
I am the first one to admit that I am not the best gardener. My mother and grandmother, as well as my stepmom are all blessed with the green thumb. I on the other hand, have a black thumb. I enjoy planting flowers, and looking at them after they have been planted. My problem with gardening is that it requires you to remember to water the plants that you have planted. I have a short term memory issue, and am also pretty busy being a mom, and am not the best at remembering to water my plants.
Planting flowers brings me a good deal of joy. I love putting my bare hands in the dirt, no gloves for me, and spreading the soil around to make room for new flowers. My fingernails resemble those of an animal after I have finished planting, but the dirt comes out after several washings and an occasional scrub with an old toothbrush.
My mother in law, who I will now refer to as: She Who Will Not Be Named, is a "Master Gardner". She took the course and everything. Those people who live in her hometown know that she is out on the streets inspecting plants, and supervising teams of workers on a daily basis, all without pay. She Who Will Not Be Named believes that she knows the best color combinations, flower arranging techniques, and planting secrets that know one else could possible understand or know about.
When Brad and I were first married, our little house in Crestline Park had a iron window box which hung below our bedroom window. I could not wait for the first spring to plant flowers in that window box! As soon as it got warm, I went to Lowe's and picked out my flowers very carefully, choosing all of my favorite colors, red, blue, lavender, and yellow. I chose different types of flowers, some that would spread and hang over the box, others that would sprout up toward the sky and I would be able to see them from inside our bedroom. There was also the most beautiful Hydrangea bush underneath the window box. We had compliments on that Hydrangea every time we had a gathering at our house. I have a particular love of Hydrangea bushes, due to the fact that my Granny, who was a good Gardner, had Hydrangeas planted all around her house. I loved walking through the yard in the spring time looking at all of those beautiful blooms, my favorite was the lavender ones. When the blooms began to fall, I would pick them up and place them in a small shoe box, for a keepsake. The Hydrangea bush underneath our window box was the lavender color that my Granny grew, which made me love it even more.
One day, in late August, I was putting Tucker down for a nap inside the house and heard voices from underneath my bedroom window. She Who Will Not Be Named had come to our house for a visit. I walked outside to find SWWNBN and my husband digging up my hydrangea bush! I was shocked and dismayed by the sight and asked why they were digging up our beautiful plant. SWWNBN replied that the bush was throwing off the "symmetry" of the house and needed to be moved to the side of the house. Now, I have said before that I am not a master Gardner by any means. I do read Southern Living, and from the authors of that wonderful magazine, I have learned a few things about plants. One of the lessons being that you are not supposed to transplant any bush during the summer or early fall. It is guaranteed not to make it if you move a plant during this time frame. Knowing that my hydrangea was doomed, I watched as they pulled up the beautiful bush and moved it with the help of the wheelbarrow to the side of the house next to the carport. I silently told the Hydrangea that I was sorry, that I had no control of what had happened to it. Sure enough, by winter, it was dead as the grass that surrounded it.
The people who had owned the house we live in now, had been avid gardeners. They had a "salsa garden" in the back yard, and a beautiful front bed around the mailbox as well as a Azalea garden. When the flowers started to die in during the first fall that we had lived in our house I went to Lowe's and bought some pansies. I love pansies. They are so colorful in the fall and early winter, and bring a little bit of joy to the falling leaves and bareness that comes with that season. I bought all of my favorite colors again, and spent hours planting them under the mailbox. When I was finished I was so proud of my work that I took a picture.
Two months later, it had not even begun to freeze outside, I came home from work to find She Who Will Not Be Named at my house. She had pulled out all of the pansies in my mailbox garden and they were scattered in the yard. I asked what she was doing and her reply was, "They are about to die anyway, I brought some more flowers for this garden that will look better and last longer." I silently watched again as she replanted my garden, that I had been so proud of, and simmered deep within.
So, as Chicken Little says, "Today is a new day!" Brad and the boys are in Noxapater visiting his Memaw and I had all afternoon to myself after I got off from work at 12:30. The thought occurred to me that this would be the most opportune time to plant some new flowers around my mailbox. I normally do not have the time to go and pick out flowers and plant them, when I have the boys at home with me. I went to Lowe's as soon as I got off from work and loaded up a cart full of flowers, reds, yellows, purples, azure blue, and a lovely fern. Don't ask me what the names of these plants are, I couldn't tell you. I picked them by their color first, and then by how much sunlight they could take, and how much watering they needed. After I got home I unloaded all of my flowers and potting soil and walked over to the mailbox garden. The plants that SWWNBN had planted were dead, and I couldn't wait to pull them out. She has been planting that garden every season for the past four years, before I ever get a chance to do it myself. I started out with my garden spade, trying to get out some sort of tall monkey grass she had planted. I went and got the garden hoe from the garage and started hacking at these plants that were in the garden, with so much voracity that I was sweating. Then I walked back into the garage for the shovel, to get one bush out that she had planted whose roots were too deep for the garden hoe to reach. The next thing I know I am jumping up and down on the shovel, lifting and pulling the bush until finally it ripped free. I threw it behind me and attacked the "ground cover" that she talked about so often. Again, I had lost myself in my vigorous task, I was pulling at this ground cover with strength I did not know that I had possessed. With each handful of plant that came out, a little bit of aggression from my body was released. I pulled and threw the plants over my shoulder until I had completely cleared that garden of every speck of green. All that was left was dirt. I took the garden hoe and hammered it into the soil and pulled back the dirt until it looked new. Then I planted my new flowers. I didn't take a picture if it this time, but I am still proud!
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