Welcome!
Welcome to my new gardening blog!
It was time for a fresh start, but if you're interested in the earlier parts of my gardening journey (and aren't put off by a complete lack of photos-- thanks ever so, Flickr!), you can read about that at my former blog, A Coastal Alabama Garden.
For any newcomers, a little personal history...
I've lived on the Alabama Gulf Coast for my entire life (40 years, now, impossible as that seems), not far from the Gulf of Mexico and Mobile Bay. I still think of my home county as classic rural America, though our beaches attract tourists, and the area has been growing steadily for decades. Much of it is still woodland, farmland, and unincorporated communities, however, and it gets more rural the further you drive from the beach.
We have brutally hot, humid summers and mild winters and enjoy a long growing season. (We're in zone 8b, for those of you to whom that means something.) It can (and does) rain just about any time of year-- often in torrential downpours-- though we do have occasional bouts of drought. Snow is a rarity, heat is guaranteed all summer long, and humidity is a way of life-- unfortunately. Tropical storms and hurricanes do occasionally affect us, here. The last time we had a direct hit from a big storm was Hurricane Ivan in 2004-- an experience we won't soon forget.
We can push the envelope, horticulturally speaking, and leave some subtropical plants in the ground over the winter. They die back to the ground, but come back each spring. Ginger lilies and elephant ears, for instance, are very happy here. On the flip side, anything that needs a winter chill (such a tulips) don't fare well and are generally treated as annuals.
Like many people in this part of the country, I grew up in a family full of gardeners. My father helped his own father to farm crops. Both my grandfathers had vegetable gardens, and we ate corn, beans, tomatoes, squash, okra, and so on, fresh from the garden (or frozen for the rest of the year). Flower gardens were also a tradition-- one that passed down from my grandmother to my mother-- and then on to the next generation.
I didn't always have much interest in gardening, I must admit. It's a lot of hot, sweaty work, for one thing! For another, I was scared of snakes and bees and wasps and probably most other insects, too. But at some point-- I can't pinpoint exactly when-- I felt an increased interest in gardening. Then when my maternal grandmother died, I experienced an even greater surge of enthusiasm. The garden became a bridge between past and present, full of promise for the future. Plants passed along from loved ones were living heirlooms. That saying that you're nearer God's heart in a garden than anywhere else on Earth? I think it's true, and I also felt closer to lost loved ones in my garden. That shared connection was (and is) precious to me.
Gardening is still hard, sweaty work. There are still snakes and wasps to contend with. (And weeds. Oh, the weeds!) But there's also joy and a feeling of accomplishment in every job well-done. There's history, and there's hope. There's life, and there's love. A garden is an exercise is hope and love-- an act of faith.
...I'm hardly ever this sappy, I promise! Only at endings and new beginnings.
I started my old garden blog in 2015. The garden has grown by leaps and bounds since then, but it hasn't all been a bed of roses (ha ha, so funny). Sections of the garden have gone downhill in the past season or two, actually. I'm losing ground to weeds, and I've recently begun to wonder if I should consolidate some plantings and shrink a few flower beds/borders. My decision will be based on how this summer goes.
A bit more background:
I'm a fairly lazy gardener-- and my laziness increases exponentially as the summer heat and humidity ramps up.
My gardening style is informal and eclectic. I love old-fashioned plants (and gardens). I admire exuberant, jungly cottage gardens, and that's the type I aspire to grow myself. My favorite plants are those tough enough to survive my imperfect gardening practices, and because of our climate I grow some fairly tropical plants instead of many of the more traditional choices for a cottage garden. I prefer to avoid pesticides and herbicides, but I will spray the occasional wasp nest, and some weeds seem impossible to eradicate without poison (though I try to use it sparingly).
My husband (Donald) and I dabble in vegetable gardening, but it's not a passion for either of us. We share our large, fenced yard with two Eskies (American Eskimo dogs) named Trixie and Luna. If all goes to plan, we'll be adding a third Eskie to the mix by the end of the month. (Exciting!)
If any of this sounds interesting, please join me on the next leg of my gardening journey. In between griping about torpedo grass and gripe weed (most appropriate name ever!), I posthundreds of repetitive photos of daylilies and other plants. Sounds like fun, right?
It was time for a fresh start, but if you're interested in the earlier parts of my gardening journey (and aren't put off by a complete lack of photos-- thanks ever so, Flickr!), you can read about that at my former blog, A Coastal Alabama Garden.
For any newcomers, a little personal history...
I've lived on the Alabama Gulf Coast for my entire life (40 years, now, impossible as that seems), not far from the Gulf of Mexico and Mobile Bay. I still think of my home county as classic rural America, though our beaches attract tourists, and the area has been growing steadily for decades. Much of it is still woodland, farmland, and unincorporated communities, however, and it gets more rural the further you drive from the beach.
We have brutally hot, humid summers and mild winters and enjoy a long growing season. (We're in zone 8b, for those of you to whom that means something.) It can (and does) rain just about any time of year-- often in torrential downpours-- though we do have occasional bouts of drought. Snow is a rarity, heat is guaranteed all summer long, and humidity is a way of life-- unfortunately. Tropical storms and hurricanes do occasionally affect us, here. The last time we had a direct hit from a big storm was Hurricane Ivan in 2004-- an experience we won't soon forget.
We can push the envelope, horticulturally speaking, and leave some subtropical plants in the ground over the winter. They die back to the ground, but come back each spring. Ginger lilies and elephant ears, for instance, are very happy here. On the flip side, anything that needs a winter chill (such a tulips) don't fare well and are generally treated as annuals.
Like many people in this part of the country, I grew up in a family full of gardeners. My father helped his own father to farm crops. Both my grandfathers had vegetable gardens, and we ate corn, beans, tomatoes, squash, okra, and so on, fresh from the garden (or frozen for the rest of the year). Flower gardens were also a tradition-- one that passed down from my grandmother to my mother-- and then on to the next generation.
I didn't always have much interest in gardening, I must admit. It's a lot of hot, sweaty work, for one thing! For another, I was scared of snakes and bees and wasps and probably most other insects, too. But at some point-- I can't pinpoint exactly when-- I felt an increased interest in gardening. Then when my maternal grandmother died, I experienced an even greater surge of enthusiasm. The garden became a bridge between past and present, full of promise for the future. Plants passed along from loved ones were living heirlooms. That saying that you're nearer God's heart in a garden than anywhere else on Earth? I think it's true, and I also felt closer to lost loved ones in my garden. That shared connection was (and is) precious to me.
Gardening is still hard, sweaty work. There are still snakes and wasps to contend with. (And weeds. Oh, the weeds!) But there's also joy and a feeling of accomplishment in every job well-done. There's history, and there's hope. There's life, and there's love. A garden is an exercise is hope and love-- an act of faith.
...I'm hardly ever this sappy, I promise! Only at endings and new beginnings.
I started my old garden blog in 2015. The garden has grown by leaps and bounds since then, but it hasn't all been a bed of roses (ha ha, so funny). Sections of the garden have gone downhill in the past season or two, actually. I'm losing ground to weeds, and I've recently begun to wonder if I should consolidate some plantings and shrink a few flower beds/borders. My decision will be based on how this summer goes.
A bit more background:
I'm a fairly lazy gardener-- and my laziness increases exponentially as the summer heat and humidity ramps up.
My gardening style is informal and eclectic. I love old-fashioned plants (and gardens). I admire exuberant, jungly cottage gardens, and that's the type I aspire to grow myself. My favorite plants are those tough enough to survive my imperfect gardening practices, and because of our climate I grow some fairly tropical plants instead of many of the more traditional choices for a cottage garden. I prefer to avoid pesticides and herbicides, but I will spray the occasional wasp nest, and some weeds seem impossible to eradicate without poison (though I try to use it sparingly).
My husband (Donald) and I dabble in vegetable gardening, but it's not a passion for either of us. We share our large, fenced yard with two Eskies (American Eskimo dogs) named Trixie and Luna. If all goes to plan, we'll be adding a third Eskie to the mix by the end of the month. (Exciting!)
If any of this sounds interesting, please join me on the next leg of my gardening journey. In between griping about torpedo grass and gripe weed (most appropriate name ever!), I post
