How Does Your Garden Grow

Yesterday, taking advantage of the mostly-cloudy, seventy-degree day, I pruned the rose bushes while Will pushed his wagon up and down our back driveway and open and closed the gate about 3,000 times. 

I live in a house with gardens that both my mom and my grandma carefully tended for years. I've inherited lilac bushes, Moonbeam Coreopsis, Russian Sage, hydrangea, a wide variety of rose bushes, and countless other shrubs, trees, and plants. Each spring, I'm surprised when everything starts growing and blooming again despite my negligence, but this year, I have started to make an effort to tend the garden. Feeling the urge to prune and clean out the roses, I went searching in one of our sheds and found shears and thick, stiff leather gloves. Did I move those over from our other house? Were they my mom's? My grandma's? I've decided to believe that all three of our hands have filled the gloves, warming the leather until the stiffness subsides enough to wield the shears, my mom and grandma much more deftly than me. 

I'm uncertain whether my amatuer efforts will yield benefits or cause harm. Either way, I am enjoying the process, learning with each new project, and experiencing just how much work Grandma De put into creating a beautiful space for all of us to come together each summer. Every time I go out to look at the flowers with Will or notice that a different tree is in bloom, I realize just how precious her years of careful planting and tending still are to me and my family, and my heart is filled with so much love and thanks for Grandma and her legacy. A legacy of love, tender care, and pruning back in the hope of growing fuller.

Also, the other thing I inherited from Grandma is a ridiculous amount of lawn ornaments and birdhouses. I remember, one time, stopping at a gas station on a short road trip back from somewhere; eveyone else went to the bathroom or bought drinks and snacks, but Grandma picked up a new concrete lawn ornament. This is a small representative.