November 15th, 2019

You know how often nowadays, especially online, you are required (or at least encouraged) to write a little blurb about yourself? Sometimes they call it a "profile" other times they might refer to it as a "bio".  I only recently realized that when I write on of those things,  I never mention that I enjoy gardening or that I consider myself a gardener.

As I fill in that space I talk of photography and writing, reading and baking, travelling, hiking and family and friends, but never gardens.  And that is kind of odd because I have always had some sort of garden, no matter where I lived.

Even when I lived in a college dorm I had a few plants.  In one apartment - which was ground floor - I managed to plant  a colourful garden of annuals between the scraggedly shrubs in the front.  It was cheery and happy and commented upon, favourably, by everyone who saw it.

I have had herb gardens,  windowsill gardens, vegetable gardens and of course flower gardens.  The biggest flower garden I had was probably  in Connecticut.  It started small but continued to grow until it had a path to walk through it, a flower covered arbor and both a bird bath and a sundial in addition to all of the flowers.  From spring through fall it was home to many a bird and butterfly and I absolutely adored it.

I never really got the hang of gardening in Colorado.  There were a few things that did well, but most of what I planted flourished for only a season or two before failing.  While I kept trying, (I am stubborn if nothing else) the best looking garden we had there was the rock garden and I'm not joking even a little bit about that.

I didn't intend to have a garden here. I honestly did not.  One of the previous owners, or perhaps collectively all of the previous owners, had already planted many trees and shrubs, some of them of the flowering variety and it already looked good.  Short of tearing out perfectly fine existing mature gardens only to start over, there didn't seem to be a place for a garden.

Until my first spring here.  There is something about spring that just begs for new flowers.  So I bought and planted just a few perennials.  Trying to get my feet wet, so to speak, with Florida horticulture.  Every damned one of them died.  I was mystified.  The things that are already here look amazing.  They are healthy and lush and huge so why wouldn't the new things grow?

I still do not know the answer to that but I decided to  just stop throwing money away on flowers to plant in the ground. And then it occurred to me. Ahhhh in the ground. That is key!  We have a perfectly lovely courtyard!  I decided that instead I would have a potted garden in the courtyard.

It started out with just a few teensy flowers from the clearance table at Lowes.  Which, once planted and fertilized and watered and treated with love and care, grew so much that they sort of took over the courtyard.  There are two tables in the courtyard.  Both of them were completely covered!  

Then the most amazing thing happened.  People started gifting me cuttings from their own plants and flowers.  And I put them in the courtyard and again, they thrived!  

My friend Marsha recently gave me cuttings from her Coleus. I mean just a few weeks ago I was given three plastic cups of tiny baby coleus plants. I only had one empty plantpot so I used that one.  It was kind of large. They looked very sweet and silly in that great big pot but I figured, it gives them plenty of room to grow.  Well here it is just a couple of weeks later and already they have nearly outgrown the pot (as you can see in the photo at the top of the page).  I absolutely adore them.

So what I have now is a collection of flowers that were gifted to me by friends.  Without intending to, I have a friendship garden.  The lizards love it, the butterflies love it and I love it.  My little friendship garden is now my favourite of all the gardens I've ever had.

However you spend your weekend, I hope you have the absolute BEST time!