Wednesday, May 23, 2012

My Time

What an oppressive day! It’s not even the end of May yet and I’m already sick of hot weather! While running an errand this afternoon, I found it difficult to breathe. I suffer with allergies at least three-quarters of the year. When the air feels heavy and stagnant, I try to stay in the air-conditioned house most of the time, but, of course, can’t all of the time.

What’s more, when I came home today, I had to plant a few flowers that my son bought me for Mother’s Day, and it was torture staying outside that long. I’m not a gardener. I love flowers! Just don’t like being responsible for making them grow. 

You grow ‘em and I’ll swoon over them – even take pictures and share them on Facebook and elsewhere... but Please! Please! Please! Don’t ask me to plant them, fertilize them and water them all summer long!

I grew up beside the river. My yard was a child’s paradise! We had all kinds of fruit trees that bloomed in the spring, plus lilac bushes, snowball bushes (Viburnum), irises, lilies, daisies, and red, yellow and white roses. There was also a long grape arbor.

Guess what? They took care of themselves! My mother loved flowers, but although she often cut bouquets of lilacs and roses to decorate and perfume the house, I can’t remember ever seeing her watering, fertilizing or pruning outside bushes and flowers. 

All of this beauty appeared every spring and summer, without any help from anyone except the Good Lord, and it was a beautiful yard! I guess I grew up thinking that was the way it was supposed to be. Flowers just naturally grew in your yard.  

But, of course, sometime after I was married and had my own house, I discovered it doesn’t work that way. I joined everyone else in the neighborhood for a while, planting a flower garden and taking proper care of it, but after a few 90+ degree summers of watering plants every evening, weeding and fertilizing, and having to go straight to the shower when I was finished because I was drenched with perspiration - and exhausted, I decided this was not “my cup o' tea!” Not the way I wanted to spend my evenings!

I didn’t stop all at once; it was sort of a gradual process. I gave perennials a try and they’d re-emerge for a year or two, and then disappear. Then I was told that, even they have to be dug up and separated every few years. Ugh! I have no time or energy for that!

I haven’t resorted to plastic flowers yet (not out of the question), but I do have a lot of ivy-like evergreen plants that grow and multiply whether you shower them with TLC or not. In fact, it’s almost impossible to kill them.

All of my flowers aren’t gone yet though. Each spring, I have at least three purple tulips that have come back every year for many years. There were originally six. And I had two lovely irises this year. We originally enjoyed dozens. But I was grateful for my two – standing tall and proud in all their purple glory for a few weeks. I also have some bright orange lilies, which I love, outside my back door. The only time they get water is when it rains, but they defy the odds and just keep on keepin’ on.

And then there are the Mother’s Day impatiens (orange, of course) and geraniums that my eldest son presents me with every year. I believe he still has hope that I'll become an avid gardener, as he is. He spends every spare moment working in his yard from late March until frost finishes everything off in late fall or early winter.

Oh how I love the sound of those words – late fall or early winter.

A time when I will finally breathe without difficulty, curl up in the evening with a good book and a cup o' hot apple cider – my cat napping at my feet – and not worry about whether the flowers need watering or not.

My time!









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5 comments:

Paula said...

This is adorable peggy. Not everyone can be a gardner. Not everyone has the time these days. Cute post.

Jim said...

I'd rather be inside when it's 90 degrees to. but I don't like cold weather either. Guess some of us will never be happy. Like your description of your tall proud irises. Jim

Anonymous said...

Nice post Peggy!

Penny said...

Sounds like you like orange. I like all bright colors ... red yellow, lime green. Happy colors.
Good blog post.

Drema said...

Peggy your gift is writing and that is what you are supposed to do, not growing flowers, me, I could spend the whole day playing in the dirt with my flowers, but have had to let go of some because of the situtation here, still I manage to get my hands dirty some.