Garden Girl...

Today was all about "It's Your Turn" and wow...as I was halfway through opening my gardens, which, in Texas, only means "it's time to start mowing again," I was really going through my "Do I Stay or Do I Sell" chatter in my mind. "Its Your Turn" comes around the neighborhood every six months and we can put almost anything imaginable on our curb and it's picked up free of charge...yeah! Pickup officially begins tomorrow but we've been able to stockpile at the curb for a week. It's amazing how things have a way of disappearing...sort of a sidewalk sale, free of charge with the constant question of "where'd it go :-)?" My sweet neighbor couple (I affectionately call them the "kiddos") with three precious little boys placed an old dryer on the curb on the very first day and 2 days later...gone and don't you know the collectors are happy about that! Though the interesting thing is that it's actually a big claw like truck that comes around with a big bucket picker upper. Only person I've ever seen is the driver who manipulates the claw - - like one of those games at a store where you put your coin in and maneuver to get a toy - - some short lived little cuddly that will probably end up at the curb some day, too. Personally, I always consider "It's My Turn" the week-end to "square up" my outside closet. A time to prepare it for a whole new wardrobe of petunias and impatience in shades of pink mixed with white and purple and everbody waiting their turn for a new spring "do." This exercise enables me to revisit all the reasons why I love my home and my yard...reminiscing about having planted every single shrub and dug up enough rocks to rebuild the Alamo just to plant something new that caught my eye. I'm pretty sure my love of gardening came from my grandmother who I was named after. Her name was Annie but I called her Mama Rush. Today I noticed that her fern is springing up to see what is going on despite catching a bit of frostbite this past February.

Mama Rush had a green thumb and I'm not sure she ever visited a nursery...her yard just had a little of this and a little of that. Everything from 6' hollyhocks to vines and vines of dewberries that my cousins and I would pick for a wonderful cobbler. Mama Rush would just snip a little cutting and tell me to "stick in the ground and watch it grow." Yeah, right, Mama Rush, I would say. Well, I did get lucky with a clump of her fern in 1971. That clump of fern has moved from house to house, city to city and it's been around since she was a young bride and the original grew in her mother-in-law's yard. That goes back much farther in time than I want to count but by antique standards I think we could declare it an "antique" and just put it in it's own little category...sort of like antique roses. Now I remember the year 1971, not because I have a great memory, but because that was the year my boys' Dad and I built our first home, on Westbury Lane, and he was quite a gardner. He had a degree in Horticulture and a Master's in Education so teaching came natural to him but learning did not come easy to me. He taught me everything about how to build a flower bed and how to feed the flowers and lawn and I have flower beds along every side of my house and down the fence line. While many days I really want to be in a "lock and go" situation, like a townhouse or high-rise, its on a day like today when I see my Indian Hawthorne blooming away, looking all bright and cheery on cold mornings, and begin to see little buds on my "Alfie bush" as my Mama Rush would call it (real name Rose of Sharon - - it's plant taxonomy classifies it as Hibiscus Syriacus) that I know deep down "An Hour in the Garden Really Puts Life's Problems in Perspective" and for that day and that moment in time I never want to give up my outdoor life of pampering my yard. This past summer I went to New Mexico for my birthday and while visiting a sweetheart of a couple, who are now newlyweds, I learned the professional technique to pruning my roses. A 90 year-young Master Gardner, Mr. Byrel, an award winning rose grower, gave me private tutorials in his beautiful rose gardens. So this past Valentine's Day I performed the 5-leaf pruning technique that Mr. Byrel patiently taught me. He said using this technique on Valentine's Day was part of the magic and I'm anxious to see how well my roses liked being tended to with such loving and professional care. My grandmother would have just said "snap their heads off, they'll keep on blooming." Somehow I think my roses will prefer Mr. Byrel's technique over getting their heads snapped off! I've never, ever seen such beautiful roses as Mr. Byrel's roses...all brands, all shapes, all colors and all sizes and he has blue ribbons to show for many of them! While I know how much he loves his roses, I think he had to have his own rose garden so he could reward his bride and soulmate, Ms. Jane, with a fresh bouquet every week. Of course, he had a worm garden, too...something I don't think I'm going to try and that could be his real M A G I C ! So today, this 9th day of March, I put my Problems in Perspective (by spending 6 hours, not 1) in the garden and found that I don't have any problems! It was a good day and I will be rewarded and so will my neighbors, or so they tell me, when the entire right side of my driveway blooms all summer and into early fall. Happy Gardening to all!