Warning! Garden Love follows 🙂
The weather in the Pacific Northwest is uncommonly warm. No hot! I’ve been busy planting seeds, amending garden beds, staking flowers, mulching, pulling weeds…
And I love it!
My husband and I were surprised when we moved to the Pacific Northwest and yards are not measured in acres (or fractions of square acres) but square feet. Moving from the Midwest, USA, where we lived on almost an acre, it was a huge change. Yikes! How would I garden? Turns out … even better.
Once we moved into our current home, I had big plans. Flowers, trees, shrubs, vegetables…I want to plant it all! I want to draw in birds and beneficial insects with native plantings and some fun flowers and plants for my family. It’s a slow process, but we’ve lived in this home for nearly 4 years and the progress is dramatic.
I don’t have a great ‘before’ image easily at hand, but the grass in the image on the left extended to every concrete surface. Last summer I dug up the perimeter of the front yard and filled it with plants. Lots of native and fun plants traded or given to me at the Green Elephants I’ve attended. Many of my plantings have been so prolific that I’m able to divide and offer mine for trade as well!
All of my selections have a story. Most of my selections come from frugality. I can’t take credit for the lovely Rhododendrons, as they were part of the mature landscape, but the varieties in color, texture, and form — those are my choices!
I could wax poetic about the hopefulness a seed holds, the excitement of seeing seedlings grow into flowers, the love and patience it takes to stake strong, yet tender, young flowers – but sometimes the images are better than words. Enter Year 3 of my Echinacea, or Purple-Headed Coneflower:
Or how about those Green Elephant gifts from the weekend:
Or about this former flower bed or beautiful Black-Eyed Susans, beginning to die in the center because they had never been divided, now thriving all over my yard {and in the yards of some friends and Green Elephant Goers} to make way for my veggies to come:
I had to get all Kon-Marie on my gardening horde – of which I hope to complete by mid-week:
And my seedlings:
Intermingled with teaching, birthdays, travel, homeschooling, field trips, theatre, dogs, home, and life – I must wax poetic another day! The garden calls, the temperatures will be high, and I have work that must be done!
How are you loving life?
Awesome! How I wish to do what you are doing, some day. Adding life around you. I am sure there could only be joy in gardening.
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Yes – Endorphins abound 😉
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He he. Just for the sake of an extra dose of endorphin, I will take gardening up in the near future 😉
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Exercise while improving the Environment 😉
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Oh it is an integration of so many things, some we may not even be aware of 🙂
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It’s all about making the world a better place for everyone, right? 😉
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Yes! I think the moment you begin to make things right for yourself with a right understanding, you unknowingly begin to do the same for people around you. After all, that is our immediate world right? :).
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And then it’s like waves on the shore — what you send out into the world comes back to you in waves 😉
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Absolutely right! :). Please keep up the good work. I, sitting far away from you can sense the wave, I am sure many have too. Especially, your immediate surrounding. Cheers.
Would like to know, how are you doing health-wise? I can see your excitement through your work and could very well take that as an answer, but, I thought I must ask.
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I am well — thank you for asking! Gardening is part of my self-directed recovery-therapy-giving more life to the world 😉
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Okay then.. May your spirit bloom your garden and may their spirit heal you in return. And may we continue to have the joy of such posts that have genesis in both your spirits(you and the garden) Cheers.
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Cheers!
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Looks beautiful to me Bikurgurl!
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Thanks! A work in process {like myself!} 😉
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Haha. Like us all 🌺 Maybe one day I will try a little garden, even just some common spices that are good fresh, peas, beans, and maybe some spinach or lettuce. I like the fresh produce/spices . But they are much work so I admire you for putting that effort into your yard 🙂
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I enjoy the process of planting seeds, watching them grow, tending to them, watering them…we also have so much fun eating fresh food right in our yard!
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Wow amazing! So much of greenery all around! Gardening is a liberating hobby! My dad attends the plants in our garden and has always been taking care of them,ever since I can remember.I just like walking around and admire the colors of Nature! Great to see your nice initiatives! Surely you will have the saplings sprouting soon! 🙂
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I love it – very relaxing and enjoyable 😉
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wow, I want a garden like that! I have to constrain my gardening to planters since I live in an apartment complex. I don’t get much sun so I have shade-loving plants instead of the tomato plants I grew at my last place. Oh well.
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I totally understand! I had years and years of container gardening — and for what it’s worth, I still do! I have some beautiful planters I bellied up for and bought in my 20’s that I still use today! Going outside this morning and seeing our pumpkins breaking through the soil, our salad microgreen mix thriving, smelling flowers in bloom — just a walk in nature is invigorating! I’m not sure that I was meant to be a gardener, but I was surely meant to enjoy the fruits of the labor! Like many lessons, I learn my gardening mistakes best the hard way 😉 I’m also looking for suitable shade plants for my low light areas – I’ll try to get a post going on what’s working for me 🙂 So great to follow your progress #Inspirational!
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Thank you! I am very interested in learning more about shade plants. I am slowly filling in the dirt area outside of my patio. I have to do it on the quiet since it’s not allowed. Everyone else has filled in theirs but they have also lived here for decades. if I keep it slow, they might not notice until it’s established and then I’m hoping they will think it’s always been there 🙂
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😉 Ah Ha! A nice fern would fill the area well and depending on your region, may even be able to stay out over winter. If not, you could sit the pot into a hole in the soil and it could live there until the first frost. Lots of options for the shade garden!
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