My house smells beautiful again with all the cuttings I have been bringing inside for my last spring with my lilac bush that lives outside my bedroom window.
It came home with me in the early 1990's, just a little guy, a start from the lilacs that grew at a cute little white house when my Aunt Cathy lived out in Fall City.
It grew, and it grew and it grew. It is taller than the 2 stories on that side of our house. Our house we are losing to eminent domain, our city needs to expand their roads apparently. So we dig and dig and dig around our yard, hoping to bring our garden friends with us, wherever we land.
Our garden still has plants, bushes and trees from when I moved here just before I turned 8 years old. Kerria japonica and mock oranges, along with the Sappho rhododendron and laurel hedge have stayed strong. We have 7 giant fir trees (some slated for the chopping block) likely left behind from when there was a Christmas tree farm out here years ago. Our neighbor Pete bought his house out here in the early 1950's because he had great memories coming out here as a boy to get his Christmas trees. Pete is gone now, but I have starts from his garden too, my favorite is my concord grapevine, the St Johns Wort, not so much. I used to trade Columbine seeds with my neighbor Vonnie, I miss her too. My neighborhood has changed a lot.
There are the things my mother planted still growing strong, red rhododendrons, the Japanese maples and sumacs, and a magnificent trillium too. There are the ones that moved here, like the lilac, starts from other family and friends gardens. My magnolia from my childhood friend Cathie has been shaped and looks amazing when I hang plastic Easter eggs in it and holiday lights. I have witnessed not only children but adults eyes light up when standing under it while blooming. The birds enjoy the birdbath that sits below it.
There are rhododendrons we planted when our kids graduated. Andy and I have planted all kinds of plants and trees here thru the years. Not everything survived , some got crowded out or did not get enough soil amendment, or a harsh winter here and there. This home has good memories of learning about gardening, including vegetables. The rhubarb we currently have is from Andy's dad. Now we have our chickens, city farming is awesome.
The Coral Bells, Irises, and Snow in Summer from my great grandmother's yard in Maple Leaf are still here. Tho Mummu's gardens were small, they left a large imprint on me too. With clothes and sheets on the line, I could sit in her garden forever, so much magic there too. She called plants that reseeded themselves - Volunteers. Tiny daffodils make me think of her every single time. And Cosmos! Bud was always puttering around in the garden, and the neighborhood p-patch too.
I still have purple primroses, rockery geranium, candytuft and wallflowers, from my Gramma's garden in Blaine. These same plants having got there the same way, starts and divisions being moved from previous gardens, from neighbors and friends.
All my Gramma's gardens and her greenhouse were magical to me. Those pumpkin lantern things at the house my Mom grew up in caught my young minds imagination. The variety of plants I was exposed to gave me many ideas to try. Gramma was a summer gardener. Sweet peas and her Tropicana rose are still my favorites. Gramma would put my brother and I to work scrubbing clay pots, shelling peas and even hauling buckets of gravel, hahaha which Eric and his wife T-Jay have been doing at their new home, gravel gravel and so much more. I have moved ferns from here to there already. Ferns that were here when Eric was growing up. They have a lilac start now too. And some foxglove starts, from when I collected some seeds in the mountains that time, they spring up all over our yard, sometimes reaching over 6 feet tall.
The real challenge will be to successfully dig up the lacey leaf Japanese maple mom planted back in the late 1970's I believe. Forever ago, But this tree will look amazing at my brother's 'house on the hill' as his neighbors have referred to his home. He and his wife have taken back land overgrown with blackberries and found the creek running along side, have mulched and leveled and planted all kinds of native species along with fun perennial bushes and the like. Newly purchased Japanese maples and a drooping pussy willow are ready to grow. It has been fun watching their gardens and property come to life.
So yes, leaving my old gardens behind is heartbreaking, but it is also heart-filling. New gardens are created from other gardens left behind. I have many ideas I would love to try. Plants and shrubs, ground covers and small trees, perennials and bi-annual seeds collected, will find new life in new gardens, and I may get to live where someone else once planted beautiful plants with hopes in their hearts, plants that started from their friends and families gardens as well.
There will be that exciting first year in a garden, when you are not sure what will pop up out of the ground. Springtime has to be my favorite time in my garden. It really comes back to life, beautiful and colorful and fragrant. I walk up my sidewalk and think wouldn't it be neat to have Wisteria, Lilacs, bluebells and Centaurea montana all blooming together at the same time.
I have more digging to do, I cannot save them all, but I will continue my best. Next are the bluebell bulbs that naturalized from my mother n law's garden. My father n law's love for rhododendrons and later orchids, I found sweet and endearing, making me want to buy plants by their names. I will be giving Lily of the Valley to Michele and T-Jay, because if I can give the scent of happy childhood memories, does it really not get much better?
Soon to dig up from under the lacey leaf maple there are yellow primroses, starts from Andy's sister Kristi, they are just like Gramma's purple ones. My Mom has had great success in multiplying them in the most amazing show of color. Kristi's yellow ones are usually the very first thing to bloom in my yard every year.
Kristi has magic planted all around her entire house. I just stand and stare every time I am there. Also under the maple are the purple single and white double anemones my Gramma got starts from Aggie Zinn's garden, although the Styrax tree also called a Japanese Snowbell, was another tiny little start now to big to move and will have to be left behind. I am hopeful the climbing fairy rose we dug up this week stays strong from the shock of being brought up out of the ground, it did get too big by our front porch, but it smelled so good and its tiny little pale pink flowers so so cute. Aggie was another amazing gardener and loved bonsai too.
I have learned gardening from many women and men too, thru the years. Different styles from manicured to country cottage, to container gardening. I look at different plants and trees, they bring lovely memories of the gardeners who have passed on and they do kinda still live on in me, not only because of the love for gardening they shared with me and others, but also their love for life and mother earth herself.
