Nurturing the Greenery

This weekend was soooo beautiful, with temps in the mid to low 70s, that even with doctor tests and prenatal yoga kicking my butt, I really felt "up" about the weekend and the outside. We had a lovely time at our favorite local park, and Tyler loved being on the swing and climbing up to the slide all by himself, and I could waddle around and watch Ben chase him and play.

On Sunday I planted the geraniums, etc., that I'd bought on Friday. In the morning when the shade extended over our front yard I put in a line of "exotic" geraniums (that just means "big," ha ha) in the front of our landscaping, and pulled a bunch of weeds. Then I planted the rest of what I had planned over by the back door, so that when you walk out the back door instead of seeing dirt and weeds by our neighbor's air conditioner, right where our hedges end, you see flowers. Along the back, by their basement window, is a line of small pink geraniums, then you have purple "meadow sage" in the middle (a perennial) and purple salvia, then a line of low-growing blue "star creepers" (also perennial) that edge our back sidewalk. The blue is so pale it's almost white (and looks a lot like alissium) and flowers all summer to fall and is "foot friendly" so when workers work on the air conditioner (twice this summer) they can step on it. This fall I will plant bulbs of some kind of tall flowering something among the geraniums in the back.

So now when you step out the back door, you see these flowers in three colors and feel cheerful! And when you drive up to the house in the front, you'll see spots of color in among the overgrown front hedges. I'm so happy about this, and feel a great sense of accomplishment. It's not much compared to our green-thumbed neighbors perhaps, but I think it's great!

Opposite the front, in the back at the back line of the landscaping, Ben and I plan to put in a butterfly garden. Like magic on Friday when out for a walk, we passed a neighbor's flower grouping and a giant Monarch butterfly was flitting and Tyler was entranced. We let him get close and he reached out one finger and tried to touch it, it flitted to another flower. We followed, and it spread it's wings in the sun. This time it let Tyler touch the edge of it's wing and didn't fly away. We stood and watched, we three, and Tyler exclaimed "budufly!" I've been researching butterfly gardens. We want to put in purple coneflowers, brown-eyed susans, and queen ann's lace.

When Tyler was born in the Fall, I planted mums along the front. This summer while I'm pregnant I want to see colors and cheerful flowers, and to water them and feel that I am nurturing something, not just being sick all the time. You know what I mean? And once the baby is born in January, when Spring comes, I want to see bulbs sending up their flowers. Maybe some blue crocuses, which will bloom even in late snowfall. Doesn't that sound lovely? I will fill the front with bulbs!