New bed on the south side of the house:

I’ve been busy working on the outside of my house. Transforming my flower beds from drab brown overgrown with weeds to lush colors and green petals is one of my favorite things to do. This year has been even more rewarding since I did no gardening in the aftermath of last winter’s depression. By the time I was getting back to myself we were deep in the throes of drought and all I was able to plant were two of my containers.

This year I decided to make a bed along the south side of the house. Previously it was a cacophony of irises and weeds with no border and no design. Some of the irises had been planted by the previous owners and some were randomly planted by my father when we first moved here.

Before:

After weeding:

Pictures of the edged and planted bed to follow tomorrow.

This container replaced my wave petunias that were eaten by the drought. There is also another similar container on the other side of the porch.

Honestly, this past year has been exceptionally rough for our family. Fighting depression became an almost daily battle and it felt like I was losing the war. I wasn’t able to plant any impatiens or other flowers this spring and the two containers I did finish died from lack of water during the drought as we had to travel. Seeing the brown crust that had become our front yard was just fuel for the depression every time we pulled into the drive.

After hearing through the grapevine that the local nursery had a few containers left and was selling them for buy-one-get-one-free, I collected my husband one very hot and sunny Saturday afternoon and we drove over to check them out. Two similar containers with a plant that looks like a coleus along with some dangling green plants – both are different colors, but very similar. I was in love!

Setting those two pots on my front porch, seeing them each time I drive by the house or pull into the driveway, brought me a renewed sense of purpose. Only a couple of weeks later I brought home three mums and an aster. I also transplanted a some of the marigolds left in the garden in containers setting on my porch. Now my skirmishes with depression are only weekly and often when I feel the pit staring up at me, I just go outside and look at all the color in my yard.

p. 88

… it is one thing to sit around talking about how the balance of nature is
being upset and how black the future looks because of this, … it is quite
another to ask ourselves what we are doing about our own plot of ground, whether
it is a little four by four square, or an acre, or a whole farm or forest.

One thing that irritates me to the extreme is when rich folks and multi-billion dollar corporations BUY carbon offsets to cover their polluting, landscape pillaging butts. Especially the ones that yap their traps on prime time news shows telling the rest of us what we oughtta do about global warming.

Here’s a better idea. Buy a houseplant.** I don’t even care if you buy it at Wally World. Whether you live in a 300 sq ft city apartment or a 5500 sq ft suburban monolith, you’ve got room for one little plant.

I never thought much about plants or gardening until my sister bought me my first peace lily.
I loved that plant. I watered it exactly the amount I was supposed to (not too much, not too little), misted the leaves with water daily, and dusted them weekly. It was my first taste of gardening, the seed planted.

It would be years and a few more peace lilies before the seed grew and flourished, but it has grown and it has flourished and now my flowers and plants are the balm of my soul on this earth. Yea. Sounds corny, I know. But it is what it is. I derive as much pleasure in their care as I do standing back and just looking at the colors and textures. It’s like… WOW… I can paint. Only I use living things and dirt rather than a brush and canvass.

And it all started with one houseplant, given as a gift by a sister who couldn’t think of anything else to a sister with an assumed black thumb. You never know if this could be the outlet for your creativity until you try it! And you’ll be saving the environment at the same time.

Save the plant! Save the world!

(If you don’t get it, substitute the word “cheerleader” for “plant”. )

**(And you don’t have to buy anything that exists only in the minds of those consumers wallowing in guilt about their hefty carbon footprint who don’t have the moral fortitude to actually do anything real to change it.)