Planting Done

Finally, the garden’s planted. The vegetables: tomatoes, peppers, cabbage and broccoli plants set; carrots, squash-summer and winter, spinach, lettuce, chard and green onion seeds sowed.

I’ve moved daffodils I didn’t get moved last year from eliminated flower beds and crocus. The grass is coming up nicely under the locus tree and I’ve killed the ground cover in the top garden. It’s ready to place the slate rock down.

I’ll get to that, a little at a time but it isn’t pressing now. I’ve planted a new rose-Southern Belle, a buttery yellow Grandiflora on its own root, 3 new clematis-Autumn Sweet, Will Goodwin and Arabella. I simplified my pots-planting geraniums mostly-all colors. I eliminated a great deal of my pots. Just more work than I need.

I tucked plenty of ‘Lady in Red’ and ‘Forest Fire’ Salvia around the yard for the hummingbirds, impatiens in the shady gardens, as usual, a bright mix instead of one color. I’m feeling a bit flamboyant, wild this year. I don’t really care if my colors coordinate. No, this year I just want to get a good, happy jolt when I look around my yard.

I kept some of the winter pansies. Pansies are one of my favorite flowers. They are, for me, my work horse. I plant them every September-they bloom until November, often, right through the snow, then come February, they begin again and go on until the end of May. In May, I either pull them or cut them back and fertilize. Most continue on until August, some don’t. It’s always a gamble, but one that works often enough to try once more.

I read a ton of gardening books and magazines. I haunt them in the winter, looking for color and hope, but I love the advice and instructions. I filter the information, apply what sounds like it fits my gardening style but I’ve learned to experiment on my own, too. And I’ve learned to listen to my own heart, especially about color, form and style. This is what works for me in my garden. My take is that if everyone did things exactly the same wouldn’t every garden be too much alike?

And I take that same approach with my writing. I love books and magazines on writing, subscribe to several magazines, constantly have a book on some craft of writing going, but I’ve learned to listen to my own heart as well. I take the advice, the instruction and tweak it for my life, my style, my writing. Trust yourself.

Trust yourself a little more.