Gardening

And, so, after a brutal winter, a glorious spring. My neighbors' deciduous magnolia is having a once in every decade bloom, and the perfect scent keeps wafting over to me as I plant herbs, clean up sticks and debris, work on the container gardens.

Years ago, when I lived in an apartment with a sunless balcony, container gardening was all that I could do and I did as much of it as I could. Son and DiL still laugh about the time that I got them to drive DiL's tiny del Sol convertible out to a garden center to buy tons of topsoil. But when I moved from the apartment to my little cottage, I swore that I was through with container gardening, forever. Real Earth, real dirt, real soil for me!

Of course, it was only a few seasons before I began to eye empty space on the deck and think, "Well, mint's actually better grown in containers so it can't take over the whole yard . . . ." And, so, here I am, with a yard of my own all planted in lilacs and gardenias and wisteria and lilies and herbs, and, still, doing container gardening, as well. And today was "Clean up the container gardens and get things planted day." The really good thing, IMHO, about container gardening is that you can accomplish a lot in a short time, can get that amazing feeling of having "wreaked order" on a finite bit of the universe, and all for not too much effort. I've got peppermint, spearmint, and chocolate mint already going gangbusters. I'm about to put in a lemon pot, with lemon grass, lemon balm, and lemon mint all together. I've got violas (psychedelic and Bowle's black, both edible) planted, and some white four-o-clocks just for fun and in memory of my Grandma, who loved to grow them.

The picture above (taken by the author; if you copy, please link back) shows fiddleheads from the ferns in the woodland garden. My mom used to watch for these, pick them, and saute them in a bit of butter. (Warning, some ferns are now considered carcinogenic,) I'm more eager for the ferns to fill out, so I don't pick them, but once in a while I find fiddleheads at the farmers' market and I do pay an outrageous amount for them in memory of my mom, who never met a weed or wild plant she didn't like to eat.

How does your garden (in the words of the nursery rhyme) grow? What parts of your garden harken back to other members of your family?