The Perfect Garden?

Is there such a thing as the perfect garden? If you ask me the answer is NO!

Each winter I move plants, pull out plants, and plan to buy plants all in an effort create the perfect garden for the next year. I never seem tobe satisfied with the garden that I have.

Any gardener that you speak with will tell you that the garden they have has taken years of trials and errors and is always a work in progress. In my book "Diary of A Wannabe Gardener" Samantha learns there is no such thing as the perfect garden, but all gardens are beautiful and individual.

Below is what some famous people have had to say about gardening and gardeners:

DOROTHY FRANCES GURNEY:
The kiss of the sun for pardon,
The song of the birds for mirth,
One is nearer God's heart in a garden
Than anywhere else on earth. "Garden Thoughts"

ELIZABETH MURRAY:
Gardening is the art that uses flowers and plants as paint, and the soil and sky as canvas.

LEWIS GANNIT:
Gardening is a kind of disease. It infects you, you cannot escape it. When you go visiting, your eyes rove about the garden; you interrupt the serious cocktail drinking because of an irresistible impulse to get up and pull a weed.

THOMAS MOORE:
The many great gardens of the world, of literature and poetry, of painting and music, of religion and architecture, all make the point as clear as possible: The soul cannot thrive in the absence of a garden. If you don't want paradise, you are not human; and if you are not human, you don't have a soul.
God almighty first planted a garden: and, indeed, it is the purest of human pleasure.

Francis Bacon
The best place to seek God is in a garden. You can dig for him there.
George Bernard Shaw

Garden Beginnings April 2010

Today was another beautiful day. It started off a little chilly but warmed up nicely. I turned over a bed of less than rich soil and planted hundreds of marigold seeds. I also planted some more seeds which I cannot recall at this moment but they will be dainty and blue. I started some Salvias in a pot for transplant later. Pulling weeds is a daily chore so is sitting outside in the swing with hubby after a long day of work. Many of the roses have started to bloom. I will add pictures as I take them of my garden. For the moment it is lush and green.

Each year I am invaded by caterpillers. The up side is that later I have a garden filled with beautiful butterflies that the little ones love to chase. My neice says she is afraid of the hairy worms.

I hate when I buy a plant labeled as one thing and turns out to be another. This Clematis is supposed to be pink but is definitly purple.

This is what is left of a evergreen bush once the deer finished. I decided to keep the wooden skeleton and decorate it with butterflies and dragonflies. It's yard art.


Lady Banks Rose intertwined in a Red Crepe Myrtle

Chinese Butterfly Rose up close and full of bumble bees


This is a wide angle view of my Chinese Butterfly Rose which blooms the earliest of all of my roses.

Favorite blooms so far in May 2008

I planted a planter with the Asiatic Lilies of deep maroon which I love and wish would last all season. The planter has Dusty Miller, Lantana, a purple haunging vine to fill in while the lilies are not in bloom but cannot yet be cut down. The purple is my first Clematis which has at least four big blooms on it. I planted it about three weeks ago and it is doing well. The white is a frilly Shasta Daisy that I cannot wait to divide next spring. It is a new addition this week. I love the peach roses and try to have at least one in my garden. This one was added last year. And finally my pink Peonies are getting ready to bloom. The bush is tall and the blooms are too huge to stay upright. I have staked it, but I don't know how much that will help. I moved two peonies that I thought had died years ago, but they peeped up this spring and I put them in a better place of pampering. Well, stayed tuned weekly as usuall to see what is going on in my world.

Time travel

Hello, it's me. This is me in my garden in 2003 when I actually wrote "Diary of a Wannabe Gardener." Yes, I am in my sleeping clothes. It had to be about 7:00 in the morning when this picture was taken. As you can see, I have changed just as much as my garden has. Some of the changes that I have undergone were of my choosing and some were changes that God had in mind for me. Either way, I've changed from year to year for the better or worse.

The plant to my right is a magnificent dinnerplate dahlia. It reached over 6 feet tall that season. I have not had another dahlia to perform that well in my garden since then. The picture was taken in early spring before it became too hot. The garden is not in full bloom. Can you identify any other plants in the picture? In my book, Samantha has difficulty identifying alot of the plants in her garden and just names the plants after people that she knows that the plant reminds her of.

Summary of "Diary of A Wannabe Gardener"

Have you ever thought about the various ways that people judge one another and how a person may see others in their own mind? Could there be someone somewhere trying to decide whether you are a beautiful gracious rose or a defensive prickly pear? That is exactly how Samantha Black judges people.

Samantha, a stay at home mom, is at war with the weeds in her flower garden. She has suffered yearly defeats, but knows that this is the year of her victory. Her thumb may not be green, but she is green with envy as she views breathtaking landscapes of various Mississippi gardens. She pinches money from the household funds behind her husband's back, to achieve her goals. Sam's family become reluctant participants in her yearly war against the weeds. She will not allow herself to entertain the idea that she is actually a gardener until she has created the "perfect" flower garden. Even when the family omen of the death birds comes to her house, Sam keeps her focus on her garden, her soul. Sam chronicles the garden murders, the revolts and injustices of nature, and her determination to overcome old wives tales in her yearlong diary. Family and community bonds are formed and strengthened in the oddest way as Sam's "perfect" flower garden comes to life.

Dorothy

I couldn't wait to share my fourth love in this life; my garden.


Enjoy.

As "Diary of A Wannabe Gardener" says, "I don't trust anyone without flowers in their yard."

Dorothy