~Trusty Joyfully~: And how does your garden grow?

(some of my lilies a few years ago)

The day after a migraine I usually am a bit slower on the uptake. So, although I was up and cooking last night, went with Dear to pick up the van (with the nail now OUT of the tire and the tire patched), and I even did a small grocery run I was still going slow this morning. The upside is:

no rebound headache
a sparkly clean counter top
home made waffles for breakfast
a heart ready and willing to work

I always wonder where I got my love of cooking. My mom, although loving to bake didn't really "love" the idea of cooking a big meal. Which made sense, because neither did her mom. They both loved gardening. And, so when we were told we were going to have a vegetable garden in the darkest, dirtiest, weediest, buggiest part of the yard and I was informed that I would have the honor of weeding said garden... me with my bug, plant, and pollen allergies... well, perhaps that explains my love/hate relationship with trying to grow things.. in dirt, near bugs, and weeds. YUCK!

(The only year the bush flowered.. I'm trying fertilizer this year.)

But today the question is, "Do I actually finally iron and put away the laundry or instead go out and play in the garden a bit more?" Usually if I find myself actually WANTING to be gardening I head out because I'm here to tell you I do NOT love gardening. I tolerate it. Most times. Sometimes I flat out ignore it, which is how I ended up hiring two young men to pull YARDS of poison ivy off the house and out of the beds. Now we're using the dreaded spray to be rid of the stuff. I HATE spraying, but with all of us being allergic and MMH needing shots if she so much as looks at it that's they way Dear chose for us to go and I'm happily following along.

I'll try to get some "after" shots of the flower beds when I'm done. They're not a showpiece by any means, but so much better than when they were merely bushes and weeds. The bushes came out by the plumber's truck when we found a leak in our water main, the bradford pear tree came down when an ice storm decimated 1/3 of it... That left us with some odd looking empty beds. It's been a slow go, both due to finances and my love/hate relationship with gardening, but today we have the following:

plum tree
dwarf japanese maple
little miss kim lilac bush
clematis
hydrangea
dianthus
asiatic lilies
day lilies
tiger lilies
daffodils
creeping periwinkle
snap dragons
hardy geraniums
one returning mum... long story
a couple of hyacinth
morning glory that's being sprouted in a pot

Seriously, it's really quite pretty right now. I keep adding bulbs here and there and am learning to add perennials rather than annuals so I don't have to keep adding more and more. But, the occasional annuals make their way in as I think they are so pretty.

(This is one love I DID get from Gram... she always had a bank of lilies by her back porch.)

Our deck is usually fairly simple. We have a hanging pot of pansies, a basket in a stand of pink geraniums and hens & chicks in a planter... simple, but nice. When I bring out the colorful tablecloths, the fiesta flatware and luray plates we have plenty of color.

Well, that's it for now. I've been enjoyng time focused on my family and home after a rush of childbirth classes and a birth. All of which I LOVE, but it's nice to take a small break. Very small. I start teaching the next batch of classes tonight and have two births coming up in late May/early June.

One way or another we manage to keep busy, keep school running and have some fun in the process. This weekend April and I get to make a long awaited junkin' run to a HUGE flea market in Evansville. I'll post pics of my/our finds later.

Hope you're enjoying your day! I am actually looking forward to getting back to my flower beds. What's in your garen?