Our Own Gardens

Most of my readers have their own garden. It may be a lush balcony garden, packed full of plants in pots, a messy garden in town like mine, a tidy garden and manicured lawns, a huge garden on a farm, or so many other styles. Our gardens are precious to us, and also, gardens we used to roam and connected with people we love bring back sweet memories.

What was your mom’s or grandma’s favorite plant? For me, I recall peonies, Rose of Sharon, and bleeding heart from my mom’s garden. Most of the yard was lawn, trees and bushes including forsythia and lilacs, with lots of bird feeders and a bird bath for the thirsty and sometimes dusty avian visitors.

Today my garden has two faces. In the front is an attractive xeriscaped array of gentle hills covered by three tones of grey pebbles, interspersed with a New Zealand tea tree with rose red blooms, four large fountain grasses and pepped up with a few flowering plants. Xeriscaped means it doesn’t need watering, hurray. Under the pebbles is landscape cloth which prevents weeds yet allows rain to soak through.

The back yard is a country style creation, with a large area at the very back where we let wild grasses grow to five feet tall, and go to seed. This is definitely a bird and wild critter haven. Our patio and some side areas are crowded with vibrant flower plants and shrubs, including a Cantua bush, 8 foot tall camellias, Peruvian lilies, many Oriental lilies all in pots, a lemon tree, and so much more.

A very central area in our backyard is our vegetable patch, loaded with kohlrabi, Chinese sugar peas, green beans, zucchini and tomatoes. We have a high producing strawberry patch, a big section of seven foot tall wild tangled blackberries, and two new blueberry bushes. Beyond our patio are a weeping mulberry tree and a fig tree, and we leave those fruits plus most of the blackberries for the wild birds. That isn’t entirely altruistic since the blackberry thorns are severe, and the vines are impenetrable. What is thrilling is to hear a hum and look up to see the masses of white blackberry flowers being visited by bees.

A third face of our garden is the hot side of our house along the alley, where we plant tomatoes and jalapeno peppers, and which we might neglect, but these plants love the sun and heat and are happy there. In fact, since they bask in more sun and heat, the tomatoes and peppers have made it clear to me that they prefer being at the edge of the alley.

What do you have in your garden? What do your plants indicate to you about their water and sun needs and preferences? Send me an email note at thekilns at excite.com and if you agree I will share here what you grow and what is important to you in your garden.