gardening observations and why planting

stuff is a faith based activity I can wrap my arms around....

maybe ten years ago I discovered gardening....up until that point I was a notorius houseplant killer and our one outdoor gardening project resulted in a little rose garden and a severe case of sunburn....I had accepted my fate...

my grandfather and my mother were always the kind that could make stuff grow no matter what....they just seemed to instinctively know what plants needed, where to put them, when to prune...they knew it all...

a few years after moving into our house in Decatur, we decided to be brave and bought a few 6 packs of bedding annuals...celosia and red salvia, I think...we planted them in the back yard around the lightpost....and amazingly they grew...we got a little braver, I started reading, getting into birds, butterflies and wildlife gardens and within a few years, we had an amazing series of perennial beds (if I do say so myself ;))...

I learned so much those years, not just the technical stuff - even though I have just the kind of bizarre memory that allows me to recall latin names of plants but not what I wore the day before....I learned patience (well some anyway), I learned that all things aren't destined to make it no matter how much you want them to, gardening helped me grow up in lots of ways...

so we moved here a few years ago and resisted planting anything at first because we didn't know how long we might be here, it's a rental and there was so much going on just settling in....that next year we couldn't stand it so I put in a few mums, a few herbs, some lantana and J planted a little succulent rock garden...last year we added some daylilies, another rosemary, some confederate roses and a butterfly bush....yesterday I finished putting in a flat of dahlias and portulaca, J has added to the rock garden and it occurred to me that we have finally have a butterfly garden again...

the colors in nature, the amazing transition plants make over the course of the year, the inter-connectedness of it all never disappoint me...

someone asked me a while back whether or not I had any faith based activity in my life at this point and I didn't even hesitate to answer "no", but that's really not true, I garden....and I have the faith that comes with gardening that life is cyclical and will carry on...

and if anyone is still reading after such a sappy post....here are the pictures of our little butterfly bed :)