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| New Flowers that were expected to die |
I think the prettiest thing in the world was sunflowers in
the back of our yard in Dayton,Ohio when I was a little girl. I use to climb up
our big hill and look at those huge stalks with the flowers that seem to tower
over me and think they were magnificent. That looked like sunshine that you
could stare at without feeling like your eye sockets were getting burned like
when you looked at the sun on hot summer days.
There were also some vegetables up there, a small garden with the
sunflowers on the side, and I remember some fruit, strawberries in particular. As
much as I enjoyed that small garden, seeing it anyways and eating what is in
it, it didn’t take long into my adult
life to figure out that I was not born with a gene to plant.
But unfortunately for my ex-husband, he thought it was a
lack of exposure. He felt that, with enough experience I would grow fond of it,
my children also. With a brother that had a degree in horticulture and with his
many years of working a side job in the nursery business, he was quite
well-versed in landscaping and gardening.
In sharp contrast, I was limited to knowing the difference between a
tree and a bush, most of the time anyways.
Thus, I was thrown in my thirties into a world I was not ready
for or adept at in the least. It struck me as funny but he found it anything
but humorous. I suppose, because of this, I found it even funnier. It is kind
of like when someone messes up at church and you aren’t suppose to laugh and
then it becomes twice as funny. This boyfriend
soon to be fiance, decided his goal in life was to upscale my yard.
I blinked it seemed, my kids and I were pulling into a yard that was
once fronted with the 3.5 shrubs with a
perfect line of marigolds or petunias in
front to a montage of plants all across
the front yard complete with railroad ties etching out areas. Each tree was surrounded by flower beds
completely full of flowers in bloom!
Let’s just say, at that point in my life, when folks asked
me where I lived, I was into landmarks for directions. Given the way our yard looked, especially in
comparison to others, it stood out. I said our home was situated in the yard
that looked like Fantasy Island’s set, particularly in the backyard! Oh yes, we
even had steps cut into the hillside in the back complete with plant beds going
up both sides of those steps and across the top of the hill. If that is not
enough, the above ground pool was torn out of there, eye sore he
explained. In its place, he put in a
hand-laid stone patterned tile patio in a geometric shape, complete with flower
beds on each side.
I recall people coming down the street and asking to come to
the back of our yard just to gawk at it and even some to take pictures. If he would have let me, I would have
charged. I was a single mother and needed the income. Once he moved in, it is safe to say, our yard
looked like he single-handedly had bought out the nursery!
The house quickly sold, mostly due to all the landscaping,
curbside appeal I was told by the real estate agent is what it is referred to. I was commended for my work and thought
process, though I told her repeatedly it was not due to me. She didn’t believe,
she thought I was a mastermind, like somehow I had this whip and got this man
to work his buns off doing all this stuff. If I had that kind of power lady,
would I be living in an average sub-division? Would my kids and I be starving and eating out
for nights out at Taco Bell?
Eventually, we moved
to a 5 ½ acre plot of land I had bought with the profit from the sale of my
home and used what was left for a down payment on the purchase of a new house
we were going to have built. I had made out like a bandit on the sale so had
plenty of money to buy the land and build the next house. No thought came to mind that with all that
land, more yard work and this time round, I was going to be pulled into it
big-time and my kids! Nor did I even think for one minute who could attempt to
outdo what was done on the other home, I mean this plot was huge in comparison
to the other place! Who does that?
Before the foundation was even laid, we were going out there
doing land duty. This consisted of cleaning out nasty tree limbs, hatching or
some word like that that entailed getting our arms and legs all scratched up
and throwing a million nasty things into a big huge ugly smelly fire. We hated
it, that is three of us and one person loved it, him. And time-frame for doing this was usually
starting at like 6 AM. and maybe him calling it quits at 7 PM. if we were
lucky. Our only break was lunch which consisted of a hot dog cooked over that
nasty fire and a bag of chips. It was eaten because this was hard back-breaking
work for us. At times we were breaking down tree stumps.
It was a never ending job. About the time it was cleaned up
beyond recognizable from when it was first purchased and I had foolishly
believed a lot of the natural look would be left, more plans came rolling
along. Next in place was a garden and a greenhouse. A greenhouse was built out
of fiberglass panels from my employer at the time, that was quite large
compared to what normal neighbors would have in a yard to start plants from
seedlings with shelving units inside and special lighting, etc… For a city girl, I was way outside my comfort
zone. This is the same girl who stared at sunflowers but didn’t plant them!
I have to stop and explain to you, none of the three of us,
my daughter, my son or I were into this at all!
No, we were not even good sports about it. His idea of start time was
like a farmer, when the sun comes up, and we were not like that ever. In fact, if he woke up early and it was still
dark and wanted us working, he made the sun.
If the project was huge, he took large projection lights and beamed them
on the garden or the area we were to be working on so light was not an issue.
Can you picture the three of us city people out there with this guy humming so
excited to be out there in the country and the three of us feeling like we were
walking through hell’s gates?
The size of the garden to us was like a doggone farm! When
the corn came in, he must have planned it the year it came in the hardest to be
out of town. It was a killer crop. We
were commanded to shuck it all and freeze it. There was so much to pull and
hull, I had to borrow a pick-up truck and literally drive it through the rows
of corn for us to pull it off the stalks, row after row, truckload after
truckload.
We hulled till our first layer of skin went numb and began
to peel from blisters. Then we blanched
the cobs in the large dishwasher and sat for hours on end cutting corn off the
cob and bagging it for the freezer. for
us to load up corn, hull and then blanch in a large dishwasher we had.You can
imagine the joy of my two teenagers, sitting at a table for hours on end and no
ear pieces to gab on the phone. I told them they could invite friends over to
help. Amazing, no one came.
The tomatoes were so plentiful we use to play baseball with
the rotties to try to get rid of some. I tell you everything that went in that
garden grew like wildflower! He was constantly getting horse manure from horse
farms and I don’t know if that was it or what but we had a regular working farm
and it about killed me! I made all kinds of sauces for weeks on
end. The work involved was insane. How
anyone could ever find that fun was beyond me.
My kids and I felt like indentured servants. Most of the time I let them
slip off feeling certain they would run away from home anyways if I made them
stay.
I vowed, when I left, I would never plant another damn seed
in my life! There were times when he
would hand us 20 bags of seeds and we would head to the green house and have to
plant row after row of seeds. We would each be told there was to be no more
than 3 seeds in each hole and exactly how deep and big each hole had to be. And
then we would each be checked on. I
thought he liked to live on the wild side letting me plant them. If he wanted
perfection, he picked the wrong three people for planting because my two kids
were right up there with me when it came to green thumbs. And they were loving
it as much as me!
When I moved to Tennessee, luckily my husband now was not
into planting, horticulture and landscaping! Yes, a match made in heaven or
should I say on earth? I quickly
learned, as you have to have a base of plants around your house anywhere you
live to make it look presentable, that rock is beneath everything in Nashville.
Underneath the entire state of Tennessee, apparently is a rock. What a perfect
excuse to not over plant or over worry if nothing grows. You gotta love that?
It is so hot much of the time in the south that laboring in
your yard is a must only for those that enjoy sweating profusely and own stock
in the water company. And when I did
attempt it, I had zippo luck as before. I realized that no wonder they say it
is the land of cotton! Very hard unless
you are persistent to get things to grow here.
But we tried. We have put things out, yearly. We have added
and taken things away time to time. But, something happened. This spring
something changed. Call it my green miracle. All of the sudden, spring and now
summer has come and my yard looks like paradise! I am flabbergasted.
Our magnolia tree that floundered for years but has steadily
hung in there. This
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| Magnolia Tree, 2nd life |
year it is like it has gone through a southern revival of
some sort! It has gotten big, more beautiful and is full of blooms! When you walk by it, it smells wonderful.
The perennials, every
single one we have planted every year, even some that haven’t blossomed before came
out to show their color. Each one we planted are gorgeous are in full bloom. They
each are a different color so it looks vibrant around our yard. I picked different ones each year thinking
maybe certain colors didn’t like me. I was getting superstitious and thought
also maybe one color grows better than another? The plant that looks like a weed with pretty
purple flowers on it is growing like a huge weed now all over the place! My
flowers I put in the pots on the porch usually look dead by now are still alive
and new buds are coming out. You can see their blooms from the road out front!
If one of my neighbors is reading this and watering my
plants and putting plant food in our stuff, wow, are you nice!!!! Please don’t stop! You will be killing my idea that a miracle is
happening right in my own yard! It is
astounding I have not heard the braking sounds in front of our house, yet
anyways. Someone must be looking at our front yard thinking wow, new neighbors
live there!
You know, there have been some disappointments this year
that have befallen me. Who doesn’t have that happen right? It is so easy to
concentrate on what isn’t right, what was wrong in the past. But what really matters
is not what was but what is now. And for me, an easy reality check is to look
outside and instantly be reminded God wants me to know the world is still a
beautiful place indeed! My yard, it’s beautiful. Just look at it, how in the
world did that happen if it weren’t for God? Take time to look for your
miracles starting today!
