The Garden is Alive!

Why hello!

Yes, I am still alive as is the garden...ish.

Where have I been all this time?!

Gaining a little gardening apprentice...

Beautifully, she has loved the outdoors basically from birth.

Baby's first cicada 😂
Yes, we survived the
"year of the cicadas"
Very disappointed that we saw a
grand total of like 5 in our yard.

Getting a little gardening tool set for her first birthday started the real indoctrination in motion.

And a 3' wooden and metal rakes, spade and hoe set and her own wheelbarrow the following year ensured the full immersion was complete.

Having an outdoor-loving toddler who occupies herself really well means being able to get into the dirt despite the busyness. 

Then along came apprentice #2 and let's just say 2022 wasn't the year of gardening.

What have the gardens been up to all this time?

I actually did quite a bit of gardening in 2020 in between baby-prepping projects. I hoped all the exertion, bending and squatting would help the baby come sooner. It didn't. 

But the gardens looked great!

I got my shade garden path back up to snuff in the summer of 2021 and oh how pretty it all looked! Husband had gifted me a bird bath that I need to pick out and said he would make me the bench I've been making room for out there.
Buuuuut I discovered that now that things are filling in I really didn't leave enough room, so need to move everything forward a couple feet and that just didn't happen that summer nor last. Could this be the year....?!

One of the most exciting things of 2021 was my butterfly weed finally bloomed!!!

And not only came back the next year in 2 of the places I'd put seeds, but sent out pods!!!

Also exciting was getting some native plants from my friend...he has vast gardens with mostly natives that are lovely to walk through when they're in bloom.

A brand new echinacea flower (my friend thinks probably magnus variety) between my black-eyed susans and white four 'o clocks gone wild!

And they all came back in 2022!!

⮝ My lilies in bloom with the gardenia (large white flower bush), butterfly weed (small orange flowers), fleabane (tiny white daisy-looking flowers), nigella (the ethereal-looking blue and a few pink flowers), and one of my newest prides: "Burning Heart" heliopsis (the yellow with red center flowers) 

⮜ My favorite is a lovely, wispy plant that's super unique looking aaaaand....it smells like licorice!! We actually made some tea and kefir water from it!
It's "Apache Sunset" agastache. 

I also got anise hyssop from him that puts out lovely little purple flowers and yup, just like the name suggests: it's got that lovely anise/licorice smell and flavor! I got a few bee's balm that have been slow to take off, but hoping soon.

I was in heaven with all the gorgeousness! And they're natives! (Well, apparently the agastache is not quite, but close.) I've been trying to focus on getting more natives in my garden and so it's very fun to see them come to fruition. Not to mention the growing amount of happy little insects I'm seeing. AND these plants in particular bloom forever! I cannot believe how long the flowers stay; rivaling many annuals!

The butterfly weed in particular is truly a magical plant. Loved by pollinators, blooms the entire summer, seeds itself pretty well once it gets established, grows in most sunlight conditions, needs little water....it's kind of my ideal plant! So very happy it's finally worked after all these years!

My tulip border has also come back nicely several years in a row...

And I finally bit the bullet, paid a fortune (because of course my yard would need very specific varieties), and bought my winterberries!!

I planted 3 'Red Sprite' varieties in fall of 2021 as well as their male counterpart, 'Jim Dandy' which I planted a few feet away near the fence so we can continue to build our enclosed yard jungle. (Big fella gonna get biiiiiig.)
I panicked when the leaves didn't come back as soon as other things started getting buds in the spring, but fear not, they did appear and grew wonderfully. So I crossed my fingers aaaaaand......the buggies did their job! Pollination! I got berries!!!
(Did I immediately run out and take a picture in the fall or winter? Of course not, why would I possibly have taken pictures of my dream-since-we-installed-the-shed-come-true of having gorgeous red in front of the bright blue all winter long?! 😑)
So just trust me that they were beautiful. And are already budding right now in early April!

The more discerning among the crowd will likely have thought, "huh...interesting that you planted a toxic berry plant when you have tiny children." I didn't KNOW it was toxic when I researched it, OKAY??!! (Well, ok, possibly I did and didn't care because children weren't necessarily in the future picture...the highest of priority clearly comes to my gardens. 😆) Whoops! Thankfully apprentice #1 is very compliant and knows not to eat anything in the yard without us telling her it's ok. (Or so we blissfully believe.) If apprentice #2 is anything like her second-born mother, we'll be fencing off the toxic berries pronto. Or having her stomach pumped regularly. Time will tell.

Well that's about all that's new in my 3 year silence. Here we are in a new spring and even in the busyness of a 9 month old and 2.5 year old, I'm ready!

Expressions of Spring

Excerpts from Victor Hugo's 'Les Miserables', chapter XVI that beautifully capture and take us back to the joys of gardens in the spring before heat waves... 
                                                                            ...along with gorgeous photos of my spring flowers by my husband on his "fancy camera".

Nothing is so worthy of admiration as foliage washed by the rain and wiped by the rays of sunlight; it is warm freshness. The gardens and meadows, having water at their roots, and sun in their flowers, become perfuming-pans of incense, and smoke with all their odors at once.    Everything smiles, sings and offers itself.    One feels gently intoxicated. 

The springtime is a provisional paradise,                               

                            the sun helps man to have patience.

This abundance of light had something indescribably reassuring about it. Life, sap, heat, odors overflowed; one was conscious, beneath creation, of the enormous size of the source; in all these breaths permeated with love, in this interchange of reverberations 

and reflections, in this marvellous expenditure of rays, in this infinite outpouring of liquid 
                                                                                        gold, one felt the prodigality of the inex-
haustible; and, behind this splendor as behind a curtain of flame, one caught a glimpse of God, that millionaire of stars.                                          

  Thanks to the sand, there was not a speck of mud; thanks to the rain, there was not a grain of ashes. The clumps of blossoms had just been bathed; every sort of velvet, satin, gold and varnish, which springs from the earth in the form of flowers, was irreproachable. This magnificence was cleanly.  

The grand silence of happy nature filled the garden.

A celestial silence that is compatible with a thousand sorts of music, the cooing of nests, the buzzing of swarms, the flutterings of the breeze. 

All the harmony of the season was complete in one gracious whole; the entrances and exits of spring took place in proper order; the lilacs ended; the jasmines began; some flowers were tardy, some insects in advance of their time; the van-guard of the red June butterflies fraternized with the rear-guard of the white butterflies of May. The plantain trees were getting their new skins. The breeze hollowed out undulations in the magnificent enormity of the chestnut-trees. 

It was splendid. 

My thoughts exactly!!

Weird Year

And no, not just because of a pandemic!

We had a super mild winter (which I LOVED!) and then a much colder than usual spring, including a few later than normal frosts, so I thought it could be a rough growing time for plants.

Instead, it ended up being an oddly wonderful year for many things!

I  mentioned  how once spring warmed up, all the bulbs started taking off at once!

The biggest surprises were that our very sad cherry tree, which normally has a few sparse blossoms followed by a few cherries that the birds eat before they are ripe, still had only a few sparse blossoms, but EXPLODED with cherries! There were so many that the birds couldn't keep up and husband got several bowls full!

His blackberry bush is also producing splendidly after a few years of nothingness.


With the mild winter, I heard mosquitoes would be ATROCIOUS, but turns out by the end of June we had seen a total of 3! 
There are more now, but they're small and sluggish and rarely bite. So odd!
I did keep up with my BTI pellet traps better than most years, but it seems like they're also just down in general.

But the BIRDS!!!
We had a robin nest and got to see the little babies hatched and begging for food for a week or so.

We had Cedar Waxwings for the first time picking at the cherries, in addition to several other kinds I was too far to identify, but have never seen before. (The cherry tree was VERY popular! Two kinds of woodpeckers, who are regular visitors to our yard, were very extra excited about it!)

During migrating season, there were several kinds of new little wrens or finches that passed through. And BLUEBIRDS!!! We've never before seen bluebirds and we've had dozens over the course of the summer! 

My favoritest of all, though, are the most adorable little birdies you'll ever see. I've only ever seen them in Ohio where my sister-in-law pointed them out as her favorite....it's like an adorable little pudgy wren and a chipmunk combined!!! The way their little shaped tail points up?! Beyond cute.

The Carolina Wren - cutest of all the wrens!

Never seen them, so figured they just don't come this far east or whatever.

UNTIL THIS YEAR!!

Husband goes, "that looks like that little bird from Ohio". We looked it up and sure enough!!!

We've had a bunch of them and discovered THAT'S the happy, singing bird that made a nest in our huge front shrub right near our front window.

So excited!!


Not only outdoor plants doing well (until a massive heat wave in and drought are sort of pummeling them 😒), but craziest of all is the INDOOR plants!

My violet bloomed! 
Orchids and violets are the two plants I thought I'd never have because I've heard they are so finicky. But in the past year and a half, I was given both!

Soooo...basic watering and who knows what else I'm supposed to do...?

But obviously it worked!

Not only did the violet bloom, but my orchid is putting out a new leaf! (Still hasn't bloomed, but hey, one step at a time!)

And then this plant that I've had for probably close to 10 years randomly shot new growth out of the dirt!! Didn't know it could do that!



The biggest surprise of all, though has been our wax/hoya plant.
A friend gave me a clipping off hers - maybe about 3 leaves and it has slowly grown over probably close to 10 years as well.

I prune it and give clippings away and one time one of them bloomed with these bizarre little flowers. No clue it did that!

I later found out that they do bloom and smell really good, but to help that process, these plants like to be root-bound. So basically all the up-potting I'd done as it got bigger was no bueno!

The last time I re-potted it was maybe 2-3 years ago. Last year we started letting it grow around our window because hey, why not live in a jungle?!

And lo and behold, what should appear this year, but blossoms!!!

 A bunch of little clusters! And after they died off, more have come!!

They are so crazy-looking; like little plastic flowers! But they smell delightful!

 So yes, super weird year for so many reasons, but some really fun, unexpected surprises!

Granted, now everything is sad as can be after a record-breaking string of 90°+ days and little rain, but hey, when it really counted - April through June where we were all getting used to outdoor social distancing events - were wonderful!

Black Gold

I mentioned that I  moved my compost bin  out of the clutches of the large tree it sat under and over to the side of the house.

It's been a dandy little spot for it, much easier to hug the house and under the deck when dumping stuff out in ickier weather.

And we've discovered that for larger pieces like watermelon rinds, we can just chuck them off the deck right into the bin 😆😆

But the best part comes when you dig down into it  ....... the moment of truth!





It's beautiful!!! 

Look at all that black gold! 

Finally! After 2 years of fighting tree roots, I have real compost again!!

And tons of it! 

So it's now fertilizing many a pot and bed!

Succulents Are Wonderful

I have tried several things in my  pallet planter, and then last year discovered the succulents are the key! They are tolerant of lack of water since this sit under the house's overhang and so only driving rain or deliberate watering get it wet. 


Loved this little red flowering succulent I found last year!       ➽  ➽  ➽  ➽  ➽


Welp, here's how it looks this spring!!

I've tried spreading it out and filling in the gaps...much harder when it's upright, though. 😒

This same red-blossoming succulent also came back in my hanging pots on the deck!

So I have finally found what I need for those don't-get-much-water places!!

Gardening in Italy

This special "guest gardener" segment is brought to you by the whole country of Italy! 😁

Yes, one year ago today we had the unbelievable privilege of getting on a plane bound for Italy for 10 incredible days!
So crazy what has happened there in the year since. 😞 I'm hoping they bounce back quickly knowing that people just can't stay away from that gorgeous place!

So much to see and do!


While there, husband took pictures of art and architecture and I took pictures of.....

..... weeds. 😆

I just wanted to show that they have the same weeds we do! I felt so connected!


Although their dandelions are a bit different 😄

It's crazy - you'd be walking through the streets of Rome and in between the sidewalk and building or in a crack overhanging the Venetian canals  -  little bits of life peeking out!

I have hundreds of this same looking weed clogging my gardens all year!

I also took endless pictures of people's balconies, stoops and roofs because it seems that every residence and even businesses have potted plants - sometimes even trees!

Trees on balconies were common!

One neighborhood in Rome had lemon trees lining the street!

In the middle of a square near Roman ruins - beautiful arches!

Or above a cafe - glorious garden on a balcony!

Every balcony overlooking this canal in Venice has flowers!

 And we turned down a deserted little street and found this magnificent hotel entrance!!

Or got lost (intentionally) in a Venetian neighborhood and suddenly popped out from narrow lanes into this wide open courtyard!

There were many beautiful flowers blooming while we were there including poppies everywhere!
Lining the railroad tracks on our way out of Rome...

We took a day trip to the coast and got to hike through the fields where I was in awe that they are farming and gardening on these man-made terraces on cliffs!

That's not landscaping for postcards.....they are actual, working farms!

Our bus ride there also yielded views of the endless Tuscan farms, orchards and vineyards...they're known for their excellent soil, so agriculture is in abundance!

And then there were the Boboli Gardens at the Pitti Palace in Florence!

Ooooohhhhhh, I could have gotten lost in there for days!
Absolutely huge and absolutely gorgeous!

The delicious freshness of the food is testimony to their gardening and local sourcing lifestyle. And yet again I am amazed by the amounts of green found everywhere in these large cities overseas...come on, America, get it together! 😞

Well, for my part, I'll just have to enjoy my own little slice of accidental / imperfect paradise and fondly remember the gorgeousness I was able to enjoy overseas!