For the love of a Garden

The garden is a place of solitude. A place one finds herself after a long day when the cares of this world are more then can be handled. The garden speaks of the love its owner has bestowed on it by watering, pruning and tending to the plants that make it so lovely. A place where hard work is most often rewarded with beautiful blooms, heavenly fragrance and the sweetness of butterflies and hummingbirds.

Our gardens here at the cottage mostly consist of hydrangeas and roses. Several years ago my mom kindly gave me a tray of 24 hydrangea cuttings that were the size of saplings. There were several years where the delicate plants needed to be caged to preserve them from the dreaded little tyke lawn mowers that my children would merrily push around as they desired to be our helpers. It’s a miracle that any survived for surely the odds were against them.

And yet, all but two survived. I’m greeted by the abundance of cream, green and eventually mauve flowers for several months throughout the year as I exit my front and back doors. Our bedroom overlooks what has been officially named hydrangea courtyard, a project recently completed earlier this spring in an attempt to make the western lawn more usable. Until that time it had been uneven and sloped with moss and a failed herb garden. Who knew that moss and herbs don’t mix? Thankfully hydrangeas don’t seem to mind.

What would life be like without flowers? I’m so glad that God has given us the privilege to tend to his beautiful creation and that our toil is not in vain. The beauty of hard work eventually always shines forth and even as I sit here looking at the mounds of white flowers surrounding me, I am so thankful that the holes were dug, the plants were planted, food was given and water was poured. For surely if those things had been neglected the sight before my eyes would never have been seen.

What are your gardening dreams? Do you have a place cut out within your property that you can rest from a weary day and smell the sweet fragrance of blooms? It is surely work to keep it lovely but it is rest that we find within its borders. Perhaps you do not have a place where gardening is even a possibility. Have you considered the many options of flowering houseplants, say, a gardenia tree or a lavender tree?

Enjoy the last few weeks of summer friends.

Until next time,

Melissa