Peppered Paper: The Monthly Bloom

Monday, February 28, 2011

The Monthly Bloom

Isn't our yard amazing... in February! It's inspired my new "in every issue" feature - The Monthly Bloom. Here's some of what's been blooming, budding, or popping out of the ground right in our backyard. I have lots of details to follow up with about how we spent our (mostly) sunny Sunday afternoons in February:)

Restoring a hundred year old house has its ups and downs no doubt. We're recently learning that repairs are not always conclusive, that short cuts inevitably end up making more work in the end, and that it's not easy to pick the perfect paint color the first time around. So, we relish in taking a break from the house and working outside whenever we can. The yard is so forgiving! It's really hard to mess things up out there. And, if you accidently plant hawthorne bushes where you think you've destroyed the yucca that turns out can't be destroyed (should have read between the lines of what the neighbor was telling us about trying to remove that plant himself), well, let the yucca reclaim reign and move the hawthorne bushes to another spot. We're constantly moving plants around until we figure out what works, and they're almost always corporative.

We've bought new plants, swapped plants, had plants forced on us by others trying to reign in their spreaders, we've dug up and transported plants from Birmingham and Spring Hill, we've attempted rooting, we've planted plants that lined the aisle at our wedding, we've taken seeds from plants at botanical gardens across the country (I think that's ok to do?), we've salvaged lavender plants from a dumpster, we've dug up hundreds of bulbs in our backyard and separated almost as many crowns, we've attended gardening workshops, lectures, and festivals where we usually feel out of place until we're bombarded with bright eyes eager to give the young folks advice... and it's only been three years! We love working in the yard together. It's one of the best unexpected joys in our marriage:)