The Humble Fern

I always used to think of ferns as those great big hanging basket, Boston Fern types that were either on old ladies front porches or withering away in the corner of an office somewhere.

Over the last few years, I've started a quiet love affair with ferns of all types. 

From the standard Japanese Painted Fern to the spindly Ostrich Fern, to an odd little Ghost Fern and Dixie Wood Fern I just found, I love them all.  

They almost self-split after a year or two if they are perennial, sending off a second plant that can be easily dug up and moved.  My painted ferns have done very well and have been split once and are ready to be split again. 

Each trip to the garden center sends me to hunt for some new type, some new color that I don't have.  

Even in my little mini-garden planters, I've found tiny ferns that are lovely and bright, full of varying shades of green that add texture and interest. 

Also, being another lazy gardeners friend, taking almost no care, these easy to grow plants thrive in places where little else might.  There is something magical about the way the unroll from a tiny spiral into a long, feathery stalk. 

The simple fern, one of natures oldest plants, has found a place in my garden and my heart. My shady spots wouldn't be the same without them.

My Wisteria

I've always wanted a wild, out of control wisteria to vine up a trellis or fence. It took me a long time and will never replicate the ones I remember growing up, but I have an arbor that has an American Wisteria on one side and a climbing English Rose on the other.  The two have done well together and have really covered the arbor quite nicely.  The wisteria blooms before it leafs out, putting all it's energy into the most fragrant and lovely blossoms. The flower buds always look like little grape bunches to me and the flowers, once they open, look much the same.  

This wisteria has been in 3 years now and has a healthy trunk at the bottom that is about 3" around.  We don't really trim it back much, just keep tucking the little tendrils back in and around the arbor.  It's entangled with the rose, but neither seems to mind.  In another month, the wisteria will leaf out so heavily, you'll barely see the top and side of the arbor, just a magical looking green doorway.  The kids love it.  

I know the Japanese Wisteria is a more aggressive plant and is more fragrant.  It was actually what I wanted, but the day I bought mine, I just had to have one that day so the American version is what I brought home. It's aggressive in it's own way, but we have no problem with the flower bed that is right along side it.  I can't wait to post more pictures once the blooms start opening and the leaves come out.  It's particularly lovely once the rose is in bloom.

Hostas and the Lazy Gardener

I'm a lazy gardener. I admit it. The hubby takes care of all the hard stuff, but I like to putter about.  

One plant we grow takes almost no work from either of us. My kinda plant!  

Hostas are super easy, are perennials in most areas, grow rapidly and take very little care after the first year.  We have about 20 varieties in different spots depending on how much sun or shade the bed gets.

They were the first plants we put in when we moved in and those original plants have been split and spread around our garden several times now.  By early summer, they are out and getting ready to flower.  This year things have gone a little quicker with the warmer weather so many of my varieties, especially in the beds with the most sun, are already up and quite filled out.

For a shady spot, a little shade garden filled with different types of hostas and ferns can make a dismal spot absolutely gorgeous. I have one bed in particular that has 6 different types of hostas, 5 different ferns, columbine and irises. When it is all filled in during the summer, it's a peaceful, cool spot and my favorite place in our garden.

Our local farmer's market has a couple of stalls selling hosta starts, or you can get them at any garden center, either as a plant or as bulbs. I've done them both ways and almost always have success.  The best thing about a hosta? You can hardly kill them.  We've put them in areas with too much sun for that particular type and they've languished, only to move them to another spot and they come back stronger than ever.

I have some that are a huge leafed, blue-green color, others that are tiny mouse-ears in a deep green.  Some lime green with curly leafs and others with white borders. We have so many that I really need to classify them so I know what we have.  Maybe a summer project.

Patience and Peonies

We planted a couple of Peony bulbs in our garden about 4 years ago.  One has gotten quite a bit larger, still not really 2 feet tall yet, but has bushed out a bit and is actually going to bloom this year!  

The other, well, it's still pretty puny.  It drives my husband nuts.  He wants to yank them out and just buy bushes that are already established and replace them.  I am taking the slow road approach myself.  I know when they bloom it will make me happy and excited that finally, after years of waiting, something we've grown from almost nothing is going to eventually flourish.  

The funny thing?  It's been so long, I can't remember what I planted.  Pink doubles? Yellow singles?  No idea.  I think there were two different kinds, but honestly, no clue.  Time will tell.  The larger of the two has several flower buds that will pop open in a couple of more weeks, a small thing to look forward to.

The first year we had them in, our little one was helping to weed. She proudly brought her daddy the little peony stalk saying she got the biggest weed of all.  Those are the things that make me want to wait, let the garden grow as it should and not hurry to replace the slower growing things. That's a memory we'll always have. My garden is full of such memories.  Many years from now, those peony bushes will be huge and covered with flowers and it won't have mattered that they took years to really take off, it won't matter at all.

At the house I grew up in and my Gramma's house as well, there were always rows of peony bushes. It seemed like everyone had them. We had little round vases especially for those blooms.  You'd cut one off, close to the flower and let it float in the water. The smell is amazing and always reminds me of home.

For a garden, a peony bush of any size or variety is a nice addition.  As they grow and expand, they can fill in bald spots or you can even make a near hedge-row out of them. The fragrance is incredible when they are in bloom.  They do get droopy and can look a little messy when you get a heavy rain just as all the blooms open up, but gardens aren't supposed to be immaculate, they are supposed to be messy.  

The Sunflower Project

Anytime that we can get the kids involved and excited about gardening makes me happy.  Our five year old, PeeWee loves to putter about with us in the garden and wants to know all the names of the flowers and help pull weeds. Unfortunately, she doesn't always know what's a weed and what's a plant, but well, she's five.

I bought a little sunflower kit for her and for all of $1.00, she's planting her own sunflowers. It came with a small compressed compost disc that you add water to and it expands.  She thought that was amazing!  Then she planted the sunflower seeds and we've been keeping them watered. 

Well...they've sprouted! All of them!  I'm going to keep posting her sunflowers as they grow, she's so proud of them and super excited to transplant them in another week or so.

Herb Garden, Flower Pot Style

 

I've said for years that I'm going to put an herb garden in.  The end result so far has been a few random chives that keep popping back up next to my climbing rose.  Well this year I decided to just stop stressing about the perfect spot to plant or how to arrange them, I'm putting them in pots and scattering them around my patio.  They don't look like much yet, but as they fill in, the pansies will go, but I'll find some other flowers to replace them with. I like the look of flowers mixed in with the herbs, even though the herbs are quite pretty on their own.  I'm hoping to end up with about 4 or 5 pots full of herbs by the time I'm done.

The warm and early spring we've had has me chomping at the bit to get out and plant everything, but so far I've held back, only putting some cold-loving pansies in with the few herbs I've started.

I have one of my favorites to cook with, English Thyme. It's something that I cook with often and a small plant will yield quite a bit over the course of the season. Being able to walk out and snip a few sprigs anytime I want, to add some to potatoes or for my famous roast chicken, is a great feeling.  It's fairly quick growing, hardy and very low maintenance. 

I also put in some common dill. This is great for almost any type of fish, potatoes, potato salad or to freshen a simple pasta salad. It grows "like a weed", quick as can be and can also take some serious snipping and just keeps producing.

I added a French Lavender that while I know of no way to cook with, it smells wonderful and as it flowers I can cut small sprigs to dry and put in drawer sachets or even small cut flower style bouquets.  The leaves and flowers can also be crushed and the oil extracted to scent items. Lavender oil is great for headaches, just a bit of the oil rubbed on the temples can relieve a headache and the scent can soothe a fussy baby.

The last one I've put in new is a dwarf curry, which I must admit, I know nothing about. I have some reading to do to figure that one out.  But isn't that the fun in gardening? Planting new things, finding out what works, what doesn't. What I'll do with the herbs I'm experimenting with is just another part of that.  The smell of the crushed leaf is amazing. Absolutely curry. Makes me crave proper English chips with curry sauce.  I'm thinking these might be harvested and dried, then ground, but research awaits on that.

I'm planning to add a pot with different types of basil and parsley as well as sage and tarragon. I had a couple of different sages planted in flower beds last year and they did very well and the taste of fresh herbs can't be matched.  I'm determined to plant as many herbs as possible this year and find out, at last, what grows well, what I like and what we'll use.  Then maybe next year we'll do a more permanent space.  On the other hand, the pots would be kept going indoors through the winter, if only the cats would leave them alone...

Contentment

Contentment. Something I'm striving for. I see so many people around me unhappy with the little things in their life that they should be happy about, but they focus on every little negative thing. If I can find one thing each day to be happy about, that should be a good day.  

Take my cats for example, well two of them anyway, cuddled up together. This is an every day occurrence. They sleep happily, grumble at each other on occasion, have the odd spat, but always back on MY footstool every night, sleeping contentedly, together.

In just a few days time, it will be me and my husbands 6th wedding anniversary. We're kinda like the cats. We may grumble at each other once in a while, but I always know when the day is over, he's going to curl up with me and sleep. I know he'll be there when I wake up and he'll be there to help put a smile on my face.  This picture sits on my bedside table, the glass cracked one morning when I was a little too enthusiastic hitting my snooze button, but that's like life isn't it? The little cracks may be there, but when it comes down to it, they don't mean a damn thing.

So here's to me, trying for contentment, trying to remember the things in life that make me happy, trying not to let the little cracks spoil what's really important and not really giving a damn anymore how I look in my pictures, just as long as I'm smiling.

The "in" thing

Every year there is some fad or other, that all the garden centers and landscapers get into. This year it's fairy gardens.  

They are basically small, complete, container gardens with little stone pathways, tiny doll-house size benches and bird-houses and little fairy statues.  

They fill these little gardens with miniature ferns, mosses and succulents.  I think they are lovely, but the fairy thing is not really me.  

Instead, I've done a few small container gardens using the same basic idea, but instead of fairies I'm just using little pretty stones my five year old collects and have found some tiny little gazing globe type things to stick in.

I've done one for work and a couple for the patio and even made one to take to my mom. I think they've turned out pretty and I love ferns of any kind so I've been able to find a use some types that are just too delicate to put in the ground.  

I am thinking about doing a container around a bonsai if I can just find the right type of tree to use.  I've never had much luck with them. Something new to try and master I guess.

The smell of Spring

With it being spring, one of my favorite flowers is around in abundance, just not in our garden yet.  We planted a lilac last year and while it's grown, it's really too small for me to start trimming flowers for bouquets yet.  I can't wait until it's large and overflowing with blossoms, just like the ones at the house I grew up in.  I remember sitting under them and just loving the smell so much.  My bedroom smells lovely right now with 3 large vases full of them.

My mom has 2 good sized bushes in her garden though, so for the last three days, I've driven down and snipped about a million sprigs and have them in vases all over the house, much to the delight of our curious and troublesome siamese, Ruby. 

She loves them almost as much as I do, the only problem is she just wants to pull them from the vases and either eat them or scatter them around the house.  She's just too cute to get really angry with though, don't you think?

I also brought two large vases full to work to brighten up my desk, the atmosphere here has been pretty gloomy lately and it's rubbing off on me. I'm trying hard to keep smiling and not let the stress and conflict get to me.  It gets harder some days though. I just keep sniffing the blooms and counting the hours until I can go home and relax knowing my kids and my husband will be waiting to cheer me up.

New Additions

We bought a couple of new additions to the garden already this year, my favorite of course being my large stone buddha. 

I saw him weeks ago at the garden shop, wrapped up on a pallet and fell in love with him. I waited and found him tucked in with banana trees starting to come up in the greenhouse the other day and convinced the hubby that he really needed to come home with us. 

We went and picked him up that day. He's a fat and happy little guy, my favorite incarnation. Once we got him home and put him in my shade garden, he looks like he's been there all along. I think I'm going to add some small flowering plant to grow up in front of him, and my ferns and mouse-ear hostas are going to make him feel right at home.

The other item is a large copper gecko that lays flat against our garage wall. He's my husband's choice and I love him too. 

We've hung him just beside the door and he looks perfect there. We're going to get a smaller one to go along with it. He says he needs more little things in the yard as my collection of mushroom/toadstool statues and other little things are taking over. 

Also, my hubby loves the little lantana plants so we've put a couple of new ones for the summer. They are so cute. He calls them lego plants, but I remember people calling them bacon and eggs when I was a kid.  I think those were the red, orange and yellow ones though.

A garden of memories

With this spring and summer, I'll find little reminders of my Grandfather, who passed away last summer. He was a prolific gardener his entire life and had a flower garden that barely had room to walk in.

We were able to dig up many of his plants, plants he'd nursed and grown from seed over many years, and bring them to our garden.  

I think he'd like that. I think he'd enjoy seeing his bright yellow tulips around our big maple tree and around the arbor. I think he'd love that lilies he gave me 15 years ago have survived and moved with me to 4 different houses and are now combined with more from his garden. I think he'd love that the little, fragrant grape hyacinths that he said spread like weeds are now front and center in the middle of one of our largest flower beds. It seemed fitting that we bring them home, that we enjoy them, that our kids play among them. I think he'd like that most of all.

The other reminders I'll have this year are 3 crumbling morel mushroom statues that were in my Gramma's garden as far back as I can remember.  They are falling apart and I'll eventually have to pack them away, but for now, I'll let them crumble. I think of her every time I look at them. I miss her terribly. 

When I was a kid, she'd take me on rides in the country and we'd take a little picnic of sandwiches and soda, maybe some chips too, but nothing ever fancy. On these rides She'd say the whole time that she just wasn't sure where she was, but she grew up in the country and knew every road for miles around.  It was the sense of adventure she gave me that I loved. 

We'd always count the red-wing blackbirds we would see.  You only ever really see them in the country, out in the fields or wild wooded areas. The day after she died, I saw one in my front yard, in the middle of town and knew it was her. We have them in our garden everyday now. They have the most lovely little trill and sing back and forth constantly. One more reason I love the house we live in and the garden that goes with it.  The memories we make here aren't the only ones that live with us.