Gardens are my heritage

Some of my earliest memories are from my Grandma's garden.  My grandparents were so poor that they still didn't have plumbing in their home and electricity was a new addition to their home.  In spite of her challenging existence, my grandma created beauty in her home and in her gardens with lovely flowers.  While I'm sure she grew others, the flowers I remember as a preschooler were the snap dragons into which I would poke my fingers to be "bitten" by the dragon mouths, and the gladiolas which towered above my tiny stature.

Snap dragons are a winter flower in Alabama and even then I don't have much success growing them.  However the gladiola bulbs from my grandmother's last garden have thrived in Alabama and cross polinated with the other varieties I've purchased.  They have spread themselves across the sunny spots in my backyard.

Of course, now that I'm grown, they no longer tower over my head, but they remind me of the glad days of my gardening heritage in my grandmother's backyard.

A hot mess

One of the solutions for a wet place in a landscape is to create a rain garden.  The idea is that you should embrace the low place, dig it out a little deeper and introduce plants that thrive in a feast or famine environment. 

It seemed like a good idea for the low place in my side yard so I started planting the area with natives that I literally dug from road sides and pass-a-longs from other gardeners. 

At first it was a huge mess because I had to keep it weeded since I couldn't really mulch the area that I wanted to spread and/or reseed. 

Then it became even messier because the plants wouldn't reseed according to my vision of swaths of bright colors.  They continued to insist on reseeding and spreading in random directions all through the bed.

After nearly 10 years the plants have happily spread randomly all through the rain garden according to their own plan.  I've decided to embrace the idea of a brightly colored hot mess.   The color pallet changes almost daily.  Sadly, the photos do not do it justice.

Pink is also a flavor

Roses should be a basic element in every southern garden.  I wish I could say that I have really tried to grow them but the truth is I am a careless gardener.  My roses get mulched and pruned once a year and then they are on their own.  My rosarian friends will tell you that my roses look exactly like I should expect from this consistent neglect. 

This time of year, though, my roses look very pretty with their fresh new green leaves and the first flush of blooms.  I'm particularly proud of this pretty posy that I picked this afternoon.

Roses blossoms are also considered a food source for my sulcata tortoise.  I often present him with spent blooms for "dessert" after a hearty meal of weeds and grass.  I noticed that he seemed to like the flavor of some roses better than others so I decided to conduct an experiment to see if I was right about his preferences.

I lined up perfect blooms from all four of my rose bushes: white Sir Thomas Lipton, deep red Don Juan, pastel pink Mutabulis, and my nameless red heritage rose.  Without a moments hesitation, Mordecai hastened to the Mutabulis and chomped all the petals in short order.  He only checked out the Don Juan petals after he had cruised the entire kitchen floor for food scraps.

According to Mordecai, pink is also a fabulous flavor.

Easter in May

I've always been told that we can transplant those traditional Easter lilies from pots to the garden but I never tried it until last Easter.  I was given a couple of Easter lilies left over from some church decorations so I planted them in a sunny space and then pretty much forgot that I planted them.

This spring I remembered them as they poked up through the mulch (and weeds).  They didn't bloom in April but they are glowing brightly outside my back door for the month of May.

When Easter rolls around next year, I'm going to "collect" some more Easter lilies to add to the garden.  I think a planting of Easter lilies in May could be a show stopper in my backyard.

Sometimes the experts are a little wrong

At a seed swap about seven years ago, I picked up a packet of seeds marked "larkspur."  I had no idea what they were but no one else was picking them up so I thought I would give them a home. 

Without doing any research, I started them indoors in pots, transplanted them outdoors in April and experienced lovely bright blue blooms on tall stalks in early summer.  I was quite pleased with the result.

Then, of course, I did some research on my lovely early summer flowers and was shocked to discover I had done everything wrong.  Larkspurs must have chilling hours to germinate, don't like to be transplanted, must be thinned, possibly staked, and hate hot weather conditions.

My larkspurs have made liars of all the experts.  They have reseeded in my gardens with abandon, in every shade of blue, pink, and white.  I give them no special attention whatsoever, never thin them or stake them, and they start blooming in April and continue to bloom through May (which can be pretty hot in central Alabama).

Not only are do they put on a stunning show in the garden but they cut well for bouquets (though I usually just enjoy them through my windows), and retain their color when pressed and dried.  The only downside to these fabulous plants is that when they are young they are quite toxic so I have to make sure the tortoise doesn't graze on them.

I'm glad that this time I didn't research before planting because sometimes the experts are wrong.

Past, present, . . . .

The shaded "past"

Last year at this time I faced the realization that it was time to remove our elderly, drought-stressed, and diseased silver maple tree.  I knew that the loss of the tree would mean major changes in the future design of a large portion of my backyard.  Not only did the tree create a large shaded canopy, its root system consisted of an extremely shallow mat that choked out nearly every other plant in its proximity.  I was dependent on just a few hardy shade lovers and the strategic use of planters.

After a summer of shocking sunshine with a composting tree root system, the plants in that part of the garden recovered with bursting enthusiasm, including a healthy crop of weeds. 

The weedy "before"

When this spring arrived, my former shade garden was a confused mess of weeds.  Where was my garden?  It was time to move forward, embracing the changes that had to be made. 

The "present"

I took a day off from work to clean it up and make some decisions about the future.  What a difference one day made for my back yard!  You can't see them in this photo of the present garden, but there are some new shrubs taking root that will completely change the dynamic, along with some sun loving annuals and perennials for the borders.

I'm eagerly waiting for my future garden to begin to mature. 

Everyone loves fresh peas

I picked this season's first snap peas of this evening.  These snap peas are my favorite peas; Bob prefers field peas, which grow later in the summer.  Mordecai loves all the peas but we selfishly only give him the pea pods.  What he doesn't eat goes on the compost heap--no part of our garden is wasted.  Time for supper; fresh snap peas, anyone?