We planted new plants in our front garden today. By the time you are born we hope the plants will have taken to their new environment and be growing famously.
On one side of the driveway we planted a small camellia tree with ornamental grass and flowers around it. On the other side, three white lilies and more varieties of ornamental grass. Your mother and I do not have a lot of experience gardening, and I have to admit I didn't have much appetite for it either. Our house is on a steep slope which limits the opportunity for a delicate garden - the garden was fairly rough, but nicely settled. All of this implied "low maintenance", which quite appealed to me.
However, this week your mother had a company come over to trim the trees and also cut back and shape some shrubs. She surprised me by also having them clear out the beddings in the front yard! Which meant we now had to plant something new in the empty space.
Your mom did the hard work to go find new plants, and I think she did a great job. But today I had to help plant everything. The ground is full of little rocks and roots, and consists of packed clay. Plus, everything here is on a slope. The planting was arduous! On top of that I didn't know if we were doing it right. Oh, did I mention I have a cold?
All this complaining is to let you know that I was doing the work under duress, and with a big frown. Finally your mother asked me why I looked so angry. In my mind the answer was: "The plants we had here before were perfectly fine, and I liked them them just fine. There was no need to have them removed... now we have to spend time, money and energy to put new plants in. For what? Why?"
Sometimes, you don't have to share everything that's on your mind.. instead of the above I said "I'm just trying to work out where we should dig the hole for the next plant." And then I started laughing. Why bemoan a situation that you can't change?! And besides that, your mom wanted to do this, so it had to be done.
So part of the little lesson today is, if your mother has decided to do something, you can either help her do it, or watch her do it, but you cannot easily dissuade her from doing it. She has her heart set on a beautiful garden, and you and I will certainly enjoy it too.
With that, I got into the spirit of things and tried to enjoy playing in the dirt. Before too long everything was planted, and some things planted twice because we realized they where probably too close together the first time. When we stood back to take in the result, I had to admit I was proud of the work... I even admit that I had enjoyed doing it. I liked that your mother and I were learning about gardening together.
Today also brought back childhood memories, from when I would hang around my dad while he was doing yard work. This made me look forward to when you will be big enough to hang around us when we do things in and around the house. One day, you will think we are doing a chore to rake up leaves or clear weeds, but I will know that the work will be incidental to the really important activity of building memories together.
You will live with your memories for the rest of your life, let's try and make them happy one's!
Here's what the yard looked like before, and what it looks like now. We have more planting to do!
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