Thought List

A not so thoughtless list of thoughts #3 ... on plants.

1. I finally got started on some landscaping around the front of my house with the help of my landscaper. Leo has been mowing my yard since I moved to Durham in 2018. Once I bought my house in 2019, he traveled over to the other side of town to help me keep up with things. He disappears between November and March but without missing a beat, I am grateful that he shows up when the grass is high again. This year, his 17 year old son is helping him and learning the biz. I always wonder what would happen if one spring, Leo didn’t show up? I sing Leo’s praises because if it weren’t for him, I would probably live in a jungle.

2. In the journey of landscaping, I went on a little adventure to Big Bloomers in Sanford, NC. It’s about 45 minutes from Durham but apparently has the best prices and best selection of plants in the area. I had no idea what I was doing but I grabbed a wagon (literally) and filled it with a random assortment of plants that “spoke” to me. I don’t know how else to describe how I ended up with this combination to include a gardenia and azalea bush. The holly bush is a given for me. But the most notable is a longtime coveted big leaf hydrangea bush, and I quietly pray every morning that the summer heat doesn’t kill her.

   

   Work in progress…the banana plant is a leftover from the previous owners and it THRIVES in summer.

3. I also snagged some lavender bushes, some hostas as filler plants, and a rosemary bush that I put in a planter next to my back door. Hello, practical magic, I massage the rosemary leaves almost every day for some aromatherapy and good luck. I also tossed in a eucalyptus plant, because why not? Along with some yellow Celosias that looked perfect for summer. Those will go in a planter with pink cosmos I’m growing along with some red Gerbera daisies I grabbed at Lowe’s on a whim. These colors really seem to scream “summer” to me.

4. I’ve always loved plants and tending to them, even when I fail miserably. I type this as I stare at the fiddle leaf fig that I keep trying to make work in this house with low lighting. Note to self, these plants are very specific about their needs. This year, I took my green thumb outside of the house. I had originally created a large planter box in my backyard for a small vegetable garden. I never got past the build and fill with dirt stage. So I started planting random flowers in it instead, mostly in hopes that it would become a butterfly garden. For a brief moment I had zinnias last year and this year some unidentified pink and white flowers are blooming. Yesterday, I threw in some abandoned hollyhock seeds to wait and see what happens there. Who knows?

5. Sometimes creativity evolves and sometimes it’s just throwing things in and seeing what sticks. For some reason, maybe with everything spinning so fast, tending to the earth has helped steady me. I spent mostly the entire summer solstice with my hands in the dirt. Maybe we don’t know what happens tomorrow or if anything will go as planned, but for now, we can play in the dirt and bask in the sunshine. And maybe, just maybe, in 8 to 10 weeks, the seeds of today will grow into tomorrow’s flowers.

Hopefully these bushes keep growing in my yard, wish them luck!