Gardeners Know The Best Dirt!

It’s true.

Did you ever think that gardeners put something secret and magical in their dirt because everything grows so much faster and greener and prettier for them?

I have.

Evidently there was no gardener living at my house.

I think they had black thumbs.

Even the weeds looked sick.

Little by little, one spot at a time I worked on changing that.

First I shaped a pretty wandering flowerbed along the whole front patio. Then I filled it up with flowers and lovely mulch!

Every year I add more perennials, put fresh mulch and keep on filling up my front flowerbeds and making it prettier. I even added some more flowerbeds up near the sidewalk once I put in the split rail fence around the front perimeter.

Last year I took out the sprinklers in the front flowerbed that were watering my patio floor more than anything and I put in drip irrigation instead.

Then I got some rocking chairs and I build a bench from a crib and I got more flowers.

And then I put some more fresh mulch (mulch covers a multitude of sins, you know).

You see every spring as soon as the first little leaves are budding on the trees, as soon as the first robin sings as he/she pulls a worm from the still cold ground, as soon as I can dig back the dirt at the base of some of my plants and see the tiniest hint of a green shoot deep down in the earth……I get sick.

Spring fever.

Covid has nothing on this fever.

It burns and burns all day and night for weeks and then months and there is no cure. It’s something I get every spring and the only thing that eases the symptoms a little is when I buy some plants and I dig in the cold ground and I get lots and lots of dirt under my fingernails and I gently push the soil in around the new little plant and I stand back and admire it and THEN and only then do I feel just a tiny bit better.

But I keep working on my front yard. Every time I have this fever I plant more things out there and I put more pretty things in the front and then if I want to enjoy them I have to sit on my front porch and look at my neighbors houses and they can see if I combed my hair or not. And they can see if my socks match or if the stain on my shirt is still there because I didn’t take the time to change it yet.

But this year when I got that terrible fever again I painted my front door.

And I put up hanging baskets with faux ferns in them.

And then I painted the stained concrete floor finally and I bought some new rugs.

And then I remembered a promise I made.

A promise I made to all of you.

A promise I made to myself.

A promise I made to my best friend Emily.

I promised to work on my back yard this year.

So I wandered out back and I looked around and I wanted to cry.

Ever have that feeling like you have no idea where to start because it’s just that bad?

I did.

So I turned around and faced the other way in case that way was prettier and made me feel less overwhelmed.

It didn’t work.

So then I went back inside but I didn’t give up. I made a list.

A list is magic.

A list makes things happen.

A list makes me happy because I can cross things off as I do them and then I feel so accomplished!

The first thing on that list was to put the gravel in that I had been planning and wanting to do for several years now except hauling that much gravel from the driveway in the front of the house all the way around the back to this area sounded really daunting.

And it was.

And it was hard too.

And did I mention exhausting?

It was exhausting.

Except when the gravel was all in I wanted to dance and sing. I couldn’t dance because I was too sore so I just sang instead. And my neighbors couldn’t see the stain on my shirt because I was in my back yard!

So now I have this lovely gravel area and I have a firepit and way back in the corner I have a little flowerbed and I actually planted some flowers in it this year!!!!

But I have this problem because when I go out here to admire all my hard work and cross off another item on my list with a flourish, I have to stand because I have nothing to sit on.

I bought some plastic Adirondack chairs like everyone has several years ago but I get a lot of wind and I find my chairs upside down across the yard after the wind dies down and I usually find at least one of them has a new crack in it. I’m tired of replacing these chairs and I’m tired of chasing them around the back yard. I needed something heavy.

So last week I went online looking for some patio furniture that I could look at and admire and long for and instead I ordered some string lights.

And then I ordered some hooks for my vinyl fence so I could hang these lights without damaging my fence.

The lights arrived yesterday and I tore into the box like it was Christmas even though I knew what was inside the box.

I barely waited a minute before I grabbed my big tall ladder and I grabbed my drill and hooks and everything I might need and rushed out into the back patio area and set to work.

Before long it was magical!

Especially that big ladder still propped against my maple tree and more magical than ever is the pile of old broken splash pools and chairs that is waiting to get hauled away.

What wasn’t magical was that I couldn’t sit down and admire my hard work and my little string lights because I still had nothing to sit on!

But some things had changed. Now I could see how this space would feel and look when I was done with it!

Now I was getting excited about all the fluffy things and actually starting to enjoy being out here and actually using this part of my yard.

The wheelbarrow left in the back corner helped with that too.

Then a couple days ago The MR asked me what I wanted for Mother’s Day. Apparently someone had just reminded him he had only a couple days left. I was feeling sassy so I said “patio furniture” and he asked if I had some in mind. Of course I said yes, even though I didn’t because otherwise this conversation would end and I would never ever get any furniture for Mother’s Day.

It still seemed like a long shot and I was certain he would forget but then Friday morning before Mother’s Day The MR gets himself out of bed far earlier than normal and asks me to show him the patio furniture I wanted! I just took a wild guess, drove him to Home Depot and walked through the patio furniture like Goldilocks sitting on each piece and saying what I liked or didn’t like about it until I got super lucky and found a set I really liked! I told him this was the set and that I liked it because it was heavy enough not to blow away and I liked the lattice design of the back of the chairs and how it fit my style and rambled on about a couple other things that I knew would get him to tune me out.

It worked!

He got them to load it up and off we went whistling along on our way back home. I got a little sassy again and asked if he was planning to assemble it all since it was in fact a gift for me. He felt that the exertion of going to the store with me and watching me try out all the furniture and listen to me sing all the way home was more than he could handle and that he should probably take a nap while I assembled the furniture.

On a serious note I was extremely impressed with the quality of the Hampton Bay Laurel Oaks furniture I got. It was so well wrapped and boxed and so well packaged that I barely even needed to glance at the instructions and it was simple to put together all by myself very quickly.

By the time I was carrying it out to the back yard and deciding where I wanted to set each piece, the sun was shining and the birds were singing. At least to me they were.

I was like a kid in a candy store!

Of course I had to grab some pillows from my patio bench in the front just to throw on them and snap a quick photo and the good news is that now I am going to HAVE to go and buy some pillows for these seats! It’s a sacrifice I simple HAD to make and so I decided to make the most of it and have a solo shopping trip on Mother’s Day.

I’ve already had some friends over to take a peek at my new patio and we had such a good time sitting back here and chatting!

Now I have a space that looks like I have magical dirt that I use to grow things AND a space that I can gather all sorts of other dirt when I gossip with my friends! (Just kidding. It had to be said)

It’s almost magical when you feel the breeze from this giant maple tree of mine and hear the wind chimes singing their merry tune.

It’s the perfect spot to sit and read in the shade.

I’m thinking a little fountain out here might be really nice. Can’t you just imagine hearing the tinkling water?

Now I’m so excited to keep working on this space and making it something the whole family can enjoy.

Do you need to see a before and after?

I think I do!

Before

After

Until next time…