Landscaping Tour: Summer 2016

When I was growing up, at every family function during the spring and summer months, my grandma, mom and aunt would get together and take a walk around the yard of whoever’s house we were at and look at their garden. They would talk and talk and talk about this flower that was here, but was moved over there, this plant that wasn’t blooming like it did last year, the new additions to their garden collection and those darn rabbits that just would not leave their tomatoes alone.

Within five to ten minutes of arriving, off the ladies would walk, talking shop about their gardens. Every. Time. It was like clockwork – their own little ritual.

My sister and I would look at each other and vow to never, ever turn out like that. Plants? Why on earth would we waste time talking about plants? We were never going to have a garden because that’s an ‘old people’ thing. Nope. Never going to happen.

Fast forward a few years and my sister buys a house with her husband.

I remember the first time she mentioned the word ‘garden’ around me and I all but fell off my chair. I felt betrayed. We were a team – we formed a pact. My entire childhood was comprised of this deal we had to NOT garden. Ever. And she jumped ship without so much as a passing glance my way.

Of course, my mother was ecstatic. Finally one of her daughters decided it is okay to like plants and flowers and digging in the dirt.

When we would get together with family, she slowly started to sneak away with the other women. She would utter the phrases that I’ve heard since I was five about the rabbits and the tomatoes and the flowers that weren’t growing like they should. And that was that. No turning back for her. Traitor.

Fast forward eight years to this past March when Brett and I moved into the North Country Nest. It was winter, so the garden wasn’t even distinguishable. Not that I cared anyways because I wasn’t planning on wasting my time with things like plants and flowers.

And then winter started to fade away and the ground started to thaw and these green things started poking their heads out of the dirt. I was still very much in denial about not falling into the garden trap. My mom would ask about what I had growing in the yard and if I had planned out where I wanted the plants to go. I would pretend like I wasn’t listening or mumble something under my breath about how I wouldn’t be caught dead in gardening gloves.

And then she came over one day with a few plants that she didn’t need and pink gardening gloves and before I knew it, I was digging up plants and spending my weekend moving Daylilies from one area of the yard to another and attempting to water these things on a regular basis and walking into stores by myself and actually spending my hard-earned money on PLANTS.

I knew it was officially the end of an era when about a month ago, I went to my sister’s house. The sun was shining and we were enjoying a mojito [made with fresh mint from my garden] out on her back patio. She then casually mentioned that her mint was also taking off and said she wanted to show me what else she had growing. And with that, we both got up, slowly walked over to her garden and began to talk about the flowers, the plants and those darn rabbits that won’t leave the tomatoes alone 🙂

 

All our best,