As a child, I was treated to the wonders of my Grandmothers love of gardening. In her front yard, there was ( and still is ) a twenty-foot long hedge that was trimmed perfectly at six foot high. It separated her front grass area from what little traffic came through the neighborhood. The grass area swung around the east side of the house towards her back yard. Along the way were a variety of fruit trees, ( apricot, peach, lemon, lime) forming the property line. Where the grass ends you come upon her rose garden, raised strawberry beds, and the back patio. There is a walk way that was poured in concrete by my Grandfather, many years before I was born, between the roses and the strawberries. Walking to the end of that led you to another level in her yard. Every year form Spring to late Summer the best boysenberries and blackberries I ever tasted were there for the picking.
Each year Grandma also had a bed of sweet peas, the fragrance swept through me like a summer breeze, the colors so soft I could feel them on my skin. I would always ask permission to go play in the garden when we went to visit. I would first go to the berries(if they were in season) and eat my fill. With my fingers red or purple, Grandma always knew where I had been. She would then hand me a few baskets and I would fill them up for her. (payment for the treat, LOL)
I remember her doing things that, at the time I thought were strange, but now do myself in our garden. Like putting egg shells and coffee grounds in the flower beds. Grandma did it, that is good enough for me. Only recently did I even question why she did these things, now it makes much more sense.(deters snails and adds nutrients to the soil) But , alas, she is no longer alive to answer, so I dive into books or sites that give me the answers.
Well that is where it all began for me, the fruits of my Grandma's labors seeded deep within my soul. I love to be in a garden, our own or the ones we tend, makes no difference to me. I enjoy cleaning the weeds, trimming the plants , blowing leaves, all of it. I really think it is cool that I get to do it for a living, I get paid to do what I would do anyway, the money is (for me) an added bonus.
Wayne and I may be very bias about our yard, but we can't help it, it is pretty-not-bad !!! When we were in the process of looking for another place to rent, we ventured up to a mountain area in the East county of San Diego. We agreed to rent a space in the Lake Morena RV Park, where we now reside. When we first looked at our spot, it looked a bit different than it does now. The photos I took really don't tell the whole story, in fact people who have seen them have said (although they are amazed) they don't really do justice to seeing it in person.
The spot we rented had plywood and metal fence posts as a retaining wall. ( for a three-foot high slope)The back yard was so over grown that I could only see a two-foot clearing in it. Wayne and I asked if we could make a yard back there by clearing some of the brush and build a rock retaining wall and flower beds. The people who ran the park agreed to that and three weeks before we moved our fifth-wheeler to the spot, the work began.
The place where we were living at the time is on the Veijas Indian Reservation, in Alpine. We lived there for four years, and deceided it was time to move when we started to not agree with the management. There we had a nice yard too, bringing in rocks (with their permission) to build a fire pit and garden beds. When we told them we were moving they requested that we take all those rock beds and paver walkways with us. At first it really broke my heart that I had to rip out four years of work, but in the long run it worked out for the best. It took us three weeks of removing the rocks and pavers, driving them up to the new place, working on the retaining wall and clearing the back yard, before we could move the fifth-wheel into place.
Soon the new yard started taking shape. The retaining wall was a challenge , to say the least, but now it looks like it had been there for years. All our hard work to prepare for the move paid off.
For those of you who have actually made it through this ramble, it is time for the Prompt tease... FREE FORM on Roses
Hope to see you join in too
ENJOY
JL&B
