The Hidden Art of Homemaking - Gardens and Gardening

Chapter 6 - Gardens and Gardening

You may have 300 acres to work with, or three; a large and fertile garden surrounding a suburban home, or a tiny square space in the back of your city home; you may have a large balcony with space for oblong or round boxes or containers of some sort, or only a windowsill or two. Whatever it is, there is something very basic in being involved with growing, living art form such as a garden of some sort. p.86

As far back as I can remember I have been surrounded with some form of flower gardening. As a young girl I would help my mom plant flowers from the nursery in the spring and in my teens I did it myself. In the first home my husband and I lived in promptly got a roses planted in the front along with some annuals.

I was a failure for a while in the gardening department when we lived in Texas. For some reason I couldn't get my northern mind wrapped around southern plants and I pretty much killed everything I tried to grow there. You couldn't put anything straight into the ground since just a trip out into the yard found you up to your ankles in water let along dodging the fire ants.

1. Look at this crazy rose bush! For some reason this one grows
like crazy and it has to be cut back several times a summer.
2. More roses. 3. My pots by the door.4. My gerbera daisy
makes me happy!

Over the years my gardening style has changed. My husband really enjoys working in the yard and planting flowers and he has taken over that aspect of it. I don't really mind since it keeps my hands clean! I also tend to buy the same flowers every year since I have hit on ones that I can get to grow and are pretty tolerant of not being watered. For some reason when it comes down to feeding the kids or watering flowers the kids always win! I also have to have flowers that don't need lots of TLC.

Our backyard came with a butterfly bush (actually it was a huge tree), a few more rose bushes, and two smaller trees. A couple of years ago I realized we had iris' back there but they would never bloom since the butterfly bush overshadowed them. Earlier this spring my husband majorly cut down the bush and lo and behold the iris' bloomed.

The iris' that finally bloomed!

 



One thing we always try to plant, even at rental houses, are rose bushes. The house we are renting now actually came with five and we put in one more. Since living in Oregon my "go-to" plants are fuchsias, impatiens, geraniums, and a few gerbera daisies. A couple of years ago we did put in a small square foot garden. This is really my husband's project and our biggest successes have been green beans and tomatoes. It has been fun to have and great to get the kids interested in eating their green beans.

1. Our square foot garden from a couple of years ago. 2. My front
 porch -I bought the bistro table set because I had dreams of sitting out
on the porch in the mornings, but alas, Oregon summer mornings
are still too cold for me.

I do have a few flowers that one of these days I want to plant and never do it. My first is sunflowers and eventually when we get a house I will put in a clematis.

More from this series:

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5 - Part 1
Chapter 5 - Part 2

I am linking up with Cindy at Ordo Amoris and with Fellowship Fridays at Christian Mommy Blogger.