I’ve worked hard, for hours, the past few weeks, outside. I’ve purchased plants for the patio, plants for the beds around the house, yellow flowers and plants for the front beds and the pots that hang from the porch railing, bougainvilleas for hanging at the back, succulents for hanging by the fence. I found a couple of new-to-me thyme plants (even though I think that the gardening folks might just be making up new varieties). However, “White Creeping Thyme” and “Red Creeping Thyme” really do look different from each other. And, some thyme plants make sweet little white or lavender flowers. And all the thyme plants I have are absolutely winter hardy, which, especially after the epic February ice/snow freeze, I do so admire.
The past couple of days, I worked, raking, around the side edge of the yard, trying to rake away the remainder of the epic leaf drop from the hedges. And, truly, there are lots of leaves that have been lying ‘way back against the fence that I just haven’t gotten around to in the past few years. There’s some Asian Jasmine and Virginia Creeper that I don’t know who planted. Maybe my dad, maybe previous neighbors. Anyway, I was trying to clean things up. As I raked, I picked up piles and put them in the big, round, canvas bin that I use to transport leaves, etc. to the big, green, recycle bins we put out on trash/recycle day, and I spotted a wooden handle. I recognized it as the tool I use to reach into tight spaces to pull out leaves, etc. It has a serious metal claw which efficiently grasps and holds leaves. As I reached down to pick it up, I thought, I don’t remember bringing that down here. And as I held it, I thought, Oh, yeah.
A year or so ago, or maybe longer, I couldn’t find it. It wasn’t on the hook on the tool pegboard by my potting bench. I looked all over the patio, in all the beds around the house, all without success. Eventually, I thought that, maybe, while using it, I’d dropped it in that canvas bin, and then forgotten it was there. And then, when I dumped that bin’s contents into the green recycle bin, I must have dumped that great claw tool in, also.
We had purchased it at Homestead Heritage, which is described as “an agrarian- and craft-based intentional Christian community.” It’s a few miles outside Waco. They have a great restaurant, some wonderful stores where they sell all sorts of homemade crafts and food items, as well as a store where you can purchase handmade tools, like that great claw gardening tool. So, I went and bought another one, which I use to pull leaves and twigs out of the beds around the house, when a rake is too large.
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- Yep, that’s what I found when I was raking.
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- And, there’s the newer one, hanging on my tool pegboard, and, on the bench, is the old one, frankly, not too much worn from being out in the weather for MONTHS! And it’s still just as sturdy and useful as the other one.
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- I bought this a couple of years ago in the gardening area of the Magnolia’s “Little Shop on Bosque.” It was the original Magnolia Store, before they expanded. Now it’s the place where they send out-of-season things when they are restocking new goods. The green shoes came from my sister, for gardening, but, they didn’t fit my feet. So, I poked holes in the toes and planted things in them. Last year it was rosemary. This year, it’s Chamomile. The little pot below has some mint.
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- This is a firecracker plant, also described as Russelia equisetiformis, and is a weeping subshrub in the family Plantaginaceae (I knew you would want to know). It wintered over last year, to my surprise, but, this year, my expectations were low. I tossed out most things that spent the winter in the little plastic greenhouse. But, I repoted this, even though it just looked like a bunch of tiny sticks. To my great surprise, there’s some green happening. Don’t know what it’ll look like in July, but I’m going to give it a chance.
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- I’ve had this pot for a few years. Several years ago, one of David’s aunts gave me a cutting of an ivy sort of plant. It grew nicely, but then winter happened, and that was that. I dumped out the old dead plant and the dirt, and, when we visited her again in the spring, I asked for another cutting. I explained that the old one had died over the winter. “It comes back,” she said. “Really?” I said, embarrassed. She graciously gave me another cutting, which grew and thrived, and, as promised, returned each spring. Until this year, and the February freeze. I waited for weeks, ‘way into April, long after the plant usually returned. I poked around in the dirt and there was no sign, at all, of any kind of growth. And, David’s Aunt Frances passed away last fall. So, with great sadness, I’ve planted these new plants: Coral Bells. i like them, but it’s not the same.
I’ve planted everything, I think. So, now it’s just a matter of keeping things alive. As I write this, on Thursday afternoon, rain is falling. The temperature was chilly this morning, and I worked for a little while, pulling up weeds in the very back of the yard, where I want to try planting Asian Jasmine, again, with the hope that it will take root before squirrels pull it up, like they did last spring. (I have some squirrel deterrent spray, which, maybe, will work.)
Everything on earth has its own time and its own season. There is a time for birth and death, planting and reaping
Ecclesiastes 3:1,2 (Contemporary English Version)