Gardens On MY Mind

When I was a little girl my father use to spend endless hours watching Crockett's Victory Garden on PBS.  He learned about raised planting beds, composting, and pruning his roses.  He had grand dreams for beautiful gardens and he shared so much of his vision with me.  My mother did a tremendous amount of gardening too.  Well, truth be told, she did the vast majority of the work involved with creating and raising all of the gardens around my childhood home.  They both loved gardening, but she seemed to be the laborer in the whole process.  I remember her turning over the soil with a giant fork while drenched in the sweat of her work.  She did all the weeding, all the harvesting, all the preparation and preserving of the crops as well.  I can't say I really helped as I was just a kid, but I remember sitting and snapping beans for hours.  Dad, meticulously arranged the layout of the rows with a tape measure and string , he even laid boards down between the rows to walk on so the plants would not be stepped on (OCD much? lol), then he sat back and watched the crops grow while someone else tended them.  (Hmmm, can you say "entitlement" YIKES! ) There was always an abundance of tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, winter squash, yellow squash, beans, beets, carrots, lettuce, and various other veggies.  The weeding and harvesting was always left for the girls though. *sigh*

At my Grandparent's I remember harvesting potatoes with my cousins and several of my aunts. There were really no uncles around but for one who was my age.  My mother has seven sisters so it was a female run family. :) Grandpa would drive the big red tractor and we would follow behind as it slowly plodded it's way down the rows of potatoes, breaking apart the hills and unearthing the treasures buried below.  We tried to stay far enough behind to stay out of the dust that filled the air in the wake of the erupting potatoes, but we use to race to find as many as we could.  Whoever collected the most or the biggest potatoes won!  

The end of the day held the promise of an icy cold treat if we worked hard.  Man, I can still feel the dirt clinging to my wet skin.  Sometimes the grown ups would turn on the water hose and spray us all after a particularly hot day.  I remember screaming shrieks of excitement from nearly naked kids, as we ran through icy cold sprays of water, while Grandma watched with joy from her kitchen window.  Grandma was always ready with water to drink and sun tea for the ladies.  Sometimes they would sit on the front porch on the swing.  Grandma would slowly weed her flower beds or harvest the peas that seemed to always be growing next to the side of the house. She had marigolds, morning glory, sun flowers, echenacia, asters, lambs ear, black-eyed-susan, and tons of tiger lilly.  I'm sure there were more, but I can't remember them all now.  She had roses I know; she was particularly fond of them.  She loved the butterflies and the birds that would come to visit too, especially the cardinals.  To this day, I think of her when I see a cardinal because she liked them so.

My other Grandmother was also very fond of roses.  She had several very well manicured roses along her driveway.  I think she was the first person I ever heard of putting egg shells under her roses.  I remember one morning after breakfast, I overheard her tell Grandpa that she was going out to put the coffee grounds and eggshells on the roses.  I was aghast! I thought that was the weirdest thing I had ever heard.  Now that I tend my own roses however, (though not as nice as hers) I do that too. :)  I have also learned that banana peels and an old rusty steel wool pad can make for really strong healthy roses as well!  I know weird right?! Eh, we are all made of elements; calcium, potassium, acids, iron, etc. etc. etc.  

There was one very memorable Yellow Rose that she grew.  It had a glorious fragrance!  I don't know if it was called The Yellow Rose Of Texas, but that name and that song has always brought to mind the brilliant image of grandma's rose, the silky texture of it's petals on my lips, and the intensely glorious fragrance that captured my memory.  I found one at the Getty Museum in California several years ago that filled me with the same excitement and thrill I felt when I could enjoy my Grandmother's so many years ago.  I felt like I was reconnecting with my grandmother as I drank in the sweet aroma of this flower; like an elixir, it did something chemical to my brain making me light-headed and happy for quite some time.

In my own gardens, I am very proud to say that I have raised planting beds that are filled with the richest blackest compost which I've made (or rather god has) over the years for my vegetables.  What I am most happiest with though are the glorious set of flowing perennial beds which I have designed and established over the years.  They meander around the yard as if they planted themselves there.  There are lilac bushes, small fruit trees, forsythia, azalea, hydrangea, clematis, astielbie, lambs ear, aster, hosta, shasta daisies, ferns, tiger lillies, day lillies, tulips, daffodils, gladiolas, a profound amount of morning glory growing on the fence along the drive, an intense amount of zebra grass here and there, and various colorful annuals as well.

There are four rose bushes that are doing rather well too.  My favorite ones are the climbing roses.  It amazes me that they can bloom with such vigor and grow to heights that defy their own strength; hence, they use the sturdy frame of another to reach their full potential.  It is a bit like life isn't it?  Even more remarkable are the Morning Glory, so those take up half of the side of my house with their vibrant blue stars floating in their sea of glorious green.  I even have a wisteria, but it has only bloomed twice in the nearly 20 years since I've been here in my home.  It's wight pulled down the not so fabulous trellis that it was climbing on so; since it never bloomed anyway, I cut it to a height of only two feet tall.  It will be interesting to see if it blooms now that it has been chopped to nothing.  I've read that it takes a great deal of abuse in order for the wisteria plant to bloom - even though they produce such extravagant and delicate blooms - so maybe it will do well now. :) Hmmmm, this paragraph is rather metaphorical for what a woman can grow through and still produce beautifully exquisite creations of the self...

As I am in this same space myself.....

Want to make a comment or read what others have said about this post?

Click on the Comments (#) in small letters under my name and you'll be led directly there.  

Don't worry, I'll still be here waiting in the wing when you come back ;).  THANKS!

(This is what blogger has to offer, so until I find a better way...  Happy debating!)

Tweet