Week One

The week of June 20 - 24 Emery was signed up for C3 camp. It's a summer camp at a church near their house. The kids just go during the day, but it's all day. Savannah didn't want to go, so Jodi asked if I'd like to have her for a week by herself. That way, after she dropped Emery off each day she could (and did) get a WHOLE LOT done at home. That was fine with us.

We had a good week. She got into the daily routine of things around here and helped out when asked and then we did some "special" things. We ran errands one day and had lunch at Cici's pizza. A few days that week my friend, Gail, and her granddaughter, Laney, came over to swim. Savannah wanted to give Laney swimming lessons...and she was very sweet and encouraging to her. Okay...so they got a little silly, too, but that's okay.

On Tuesday Savannah and I rode along with Grandpa when he went to get some mulch. The place where he gets it also has various rocks, gravel and stones for landscaping. We took sandwich bags and I asked the lady there if we could get a few small, smooth stones. She said yes. Savannah enjoyed climbing in the rock pile and picking out some "special" stones, even though she didn't know what we were going to do with them. But I knew. I had a plan. :) When we got home I explained to her that we were each going to make our own Fairy Garden and those stones could be used for paths between our plants. She really got into it and it turned out great. I had found some little things we could use. She chose a couple of fence pieces, a small watering can, a shovel and a tricycle. For some reason, she laid her tricycle on it's side in the "grass" (moss) and Jerry said that was his favorite part. I had gotten a little metal angel for each of us and she came in and rooted through her toys to find a dog to visit her garden. (You can see the stones of her path behind the angel's wings.)

On Wednesday I took her to the Covington library to see Barry Stewart Mann, a story teller. He was really good and we both enjoyed him. On Thursday afternoon we went to the movies to see Judy Moody and the NOT Bummer Summer. It was cute.

So before we knew it, Friday was here. Aunt Jess picked her up after lunch and took her back home. It was a fun week and we each have our Fairy Gardens to remember it by.

Inspiration

When my cousin, Melissa, was telling me some of the things we could do and see when we were in Rockford and she mentioned the Anderson Gardens, I told her we love that kind of thing...but it might cause Jerry some concern. Because when I go to places like that, I get inspired. I think, "Why can't we do this in our yard?" I have a long history of coming up with these grand ideas and expecting Jerry to make it all look like it does in my head.

Well, before we even got to Rockford that had already happened. When we went to the plant nurseries in the Millington area while we were in Sheridan, the first idea hit me. The mailbox! The nursery that had everything laid out so temptingly had their mailbox surrounded by plants. (That's it in the first picture) I really never thought of it before, but our mail box sits on a bare patch of ground and has for all the years we've been here. I've never thought to landscape around that. And why couldn't ours look like that? The rest of the trip I kept imagining how great our mailbox was going to look once I got home and got going on that project. When we were in Rockford, I kept taking mental notes of how they had big rocks everywhere (ROCKford) and plants snuggled in around them. I thought I knew where we had a couple of large rocks in the back yard that we could add to the area. I was very excited. Look out, Jerry!

So in the first week that we were home, Jerry got busy and took out the old mail box post and got a new one and reset it in concrete. While he was doing that, I went out and bought plants and scouted out the back woods for large rocks. So on the following Monday, June 13, our 41st anniversary....I was "good to go" on the mailbox project! The plan for the day was to get busy before it got too hot. Get the mailbox looking wonderful. Take a little break and then go out for a nice dinner. Isn't it funny how plans can change?

We started by me -- the project coordinator -- showing Jerry -- the muscle -- where I'd found some rocks I thought would work. The first thing that happened that wasn't in "the plan" was that in transferring them to the work area he dropped one on his foot. Being the trooper that he is, he continued with the work and it was only later...when he was limping...that I realized how badly he had hurt it.

The second thing that didn't exactly go as planned was the preparing of the garden bed. In my enthusiasm I had forgotten a couple of things. 1...Illinois has black dirt. We do not. 2...Illinois gets rain. We do not. While I was standing by with my carefully selected plants and waiting to put them into the soil, Jerry was chopping, picking and tilling at the dirt. After sitting on a slant in the sun since the age of dinosaurs, that particular patch of clay was like concrete. I was reminded yet again of why they use clay to make bricks. The neighbor commented on how nice it was looking and I told him the ground was a little hard. He said he had to get his drill out the other day to put something in his back yard.

So after several hours of trying to get down deep enough to plant something, we had to just give up and settle for as good as we could get. It wasn't what we'd have liked to plant in, but it was as deep as we were going to able to go. We put a bunch of soil amendments, additives, etc. in and worked them in as best we could and then put the plants in. Jerry wasn't convinced at all that anything would grow in that hard dirt, that shallow of a "grave" or in all that full sun. Ever the optimist, I assured him that all those plants call for "full sun". After we got cleaned up and were sitting on the porch (and he had taken some pain pills), I told him what we SHOULD have done was to make a raised bed and level it back to the slope behind it. He just leveled a look at me and didn't have an opinion on that. I said, "Maybe in the fall if this doesn't work". Again...just a look from him.

But here we are a month later and the few little plants we put in seem to be very happy there. So are the rocks. And Jerry isn't limping hardly at all any more. Don't compare it to the first picture of the lush plants all filled in around the mailbox. Compare it to the second picture of what was there before. See? Improvement! He has spent 41 years trying to make all my dreams come true...even the goofy ones. Happy anniversary, Honey, and thanks for all your help.

Sweet Georgia Blue

We've had an unusually long and cold winter this year. This past weekend was very nice, but the weekend before we had snow. And in the days between those two events, it was still chilly and windy -- with pretty cold nights. So I was surprised to go out there one of those days and be greeted by this sweet little harbinger of spring. Amidst the dead leaves that have lay there all winter, and despite the harsh weather conditions, she stuck her lovely little face up toward the sun and, unlike the grousey ground hog, declared that spring is just around the corner!

There is an area in the front of the house where we put a fountain a few years ago and I consider this spot to be my "presidential garden"...because it is a garden of hope and change -- and ultimate disappointment. Every spring when the weather warms up, I get energized and enthusiastic about gardening. This is a nice little area to work in. So I go up the road a ways to my favorite nursery and start buying plants to put in. I get Jerry to dig lots of little holes (hey...that's hard work!) and I start putting things in. The fact that most of these are perennials and yet I'm buying new ones every year will tell you what kind of green thumb I have. So with great expectations for the riot of color that I will see all summer long, I plant. I read up on these plants and believe all the wonderful things that they are said to do. But then, alas, summer comes. And with it comes heat. I don't "do" sweating, so I go in the air conditioning and read a book. Then come the bugs...feasting on the tiny roots of my new friends. Then, more times than I care to remember, comes the drought -- and the "Sweet Georgia Brown" clay turns to adobe bricks. Mi Casa doesn't look so good by now.

So last spring, in a fit of such enthusiasm, I purchased three of these cute little plants called Veronica peduncularis 'Georgia Blue'. They were only $1 each and I took them home and apologized to them for what their future would hold. I nestled them together under a hosta and next to a cute rock that has actually survived in the "garden" for several years now. But they shared my vision and soon spread out and made themselves at home. A short while later I had to take the two that were closest to the hosta and move them on the other side and space them out further. They are spring bloomers, so the flowers didn't last long. But these little plants delighted me all summer. Because of the low height they neatly mounded even as they spread and the foliage was a pleasant change from brown dirt.

In the last few days, with the warmer weather and sun peeking out, several others have joined the first flower in opening up and I'm seeing lots and lots of buds! So I'm going to hang my hopes on the catalog description (this is THEIR photo) and expect this little gem to please me for many months to come. I'm sure she'll be one reason I go to the nursery and spend lots and lots of green on my "presidential garden" again this year. Wish me luck!

Late Bloomers

While visiting in Florida several years ago, I fell in love with bougainvilleas. They are native to that climate and grow as large bushes in the ground. But we can't grow them that way in Georgia. I was very excited to see some small ones in pots in my local Lowe's this spring. They need lots of sun and something to climb up on. So I brought one home and got very busy making just the right spot on the corner of the front porch for it. I got a plant stand and raised a larger pot to rail height. I had Jerry run some fishing line to the top of the porch rail for it to climb on. And I watered it and watched it and waited...and waited...and waited. I was imagining a porch corner filled with these wonderful showy flowers. But the few flowers that were on it fell off and were replaced only by leaves. It was a healthy looking plant...but no flowers. And what good is a bougainvillea that has no flowers???

Finally, one day we were fertilizing things in the yard and Jerry had a little bit left. He asked what else need some and I told him to just put it in that pot. Well....it appears it was hungry! I thought there was enough food in the pots they come in plus the potting soil I had added to it -- but I was wrong. After that it started to produce the beautiful flowers I had looked for all summer. And now I am enjoying it immensely every time I go out on the front porch. Note to self: feed it!!!

Also...fairly late in the summer we were walking through Lowe's (we spend a lot of time at Lowe's) and they had these cute little pots of seeds for kids to grow. At only $1 each, I figured they'd be good to put in the grand kids' surprise boxes. We got a sunflower for Savannah and a pumpkin vine for Emery. Emery protested a little when we talked about planting his because he said it wasn't Halloween yet. His expectations are even higher than mine. But we planted the seeds in their little cups and put them in the window and then transplanted the little shoots into the ground. Since these children live in a world of instant gratification, they kinda lost interest for a while. But they were happy recently to see how their plants were coming along. Savannah was eating a cookie when we walked out to see the plants and she felt moved to share part of her cookie with her sunflower. I guess she realizes what Nanny doesn't.....plants need to eat, too!!