My Blog List

Saturday, October 13, 2018

A LITTLE INDOOR GARDENING

I made good use of some very hot and humid days recently by sorting out some of the garden paraphernalia I keep in the little Korean chest in the corner of the living room. Among the stacks of papers are my garden notes, clippings from newspapers, pages of garden ideas I have cut from magazines, and lots of thank you notes from visitors who have been to our garden. This seemed like a good time to organize them into files.
I'm not a keeper of letters. I did once keep a bundle of love letters from David but I burnt them before I got on that plane to come to America! But for some reason I have kept all the cards and notes from people who have been to visit our garden. I'd like to think that some time in the future my descendants will look through this file and learn about how much I loved to garden and share it with others. I know how much I treasure the three cards written by my great, great grandfather to his beloved in the 1840s, and saved down the male line for me to read so many years later. And the excitement David felt when he came across the diary written by his great, great uncle which told of his great grandfather's visit to Australia and his plan to immigrate.

Hand written card from my GGGrandfather
Among many of the letters and cards I received was a favorite which had a photograph of the pot which used to spill water into the pool- long gone and replaced by something more durable. And these two envelopes gave me quite a chuckle. Addressed to the Garden Queen of Austin and Queen mother of Austin gardening. It was nice that he thought that way but very far from a reality. I sent him some of my Monarda and in return he sent me some seeds for my garden.


I ended up organizing the magazine articles, newspaper articles and publications of our various garden tours, into a big binder. But I still need to find a better way to organize that big bulging sleeve of cards. Maybe a better idea would be to just copy and print the contents of each note.
There were lots of photos( taken before a digital camera became an important garden tool) some taken by me and some taken by the visitors and sent to me. It is a reminder of how the garden looked in its infancy.


Would you recognize the garden today? This is how it looked after David finished making those patio stones. Today they have aged and those cracks are home to many self sown plants. I'm afraid it is a weakness I have or is it just my gardening style.
Fall clean up 
And spring in this same garden.


In the front courtyard a photograph of before I planted the Lady Banks rose. It was a visitor on one of the garden tours that asked me if I knew the story of the Lady Banks rose and later sent me some clippings from a National Geographic magazine about the plant hunting expeditions of Sir Joseph Banks and  the origin of the rose's name. The two crape myrtles are long gone although they keep trying to return from roots left behind.


And today. Maybe time for a little clean up, although winter will take care of much of this. Would I ever be bold enough to have a clean sweep so that the rocks would once again be visible?


All these reminiscences were a good thing. This morning I got out in the garden and started the task of removing some of those weedy grasses. But, as always, I just pulled a few here and there preferring to leave it for a few days before I go back and remove more. Once pulled they can never be put back. And then returning heart and humidity drove me back inside the house. But all that is to change in the blink if an eye.

10 comments:

  1. I couldn't help but marvel at your GGGrandfather's penmanship! Your collections are the best kind I can think of and certainly worth preserving. Maybe some day we'll all feel the same about our digital photo collections and blog posts - even those are diaries of a sort. I hope you get a well-deserved break in the heat and humidity soon. At long last we got some rain last night into early this morning and I think I heard that storm is headed east.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, what will happen to our blogs? I actually published my early ones but soon gave up-too costly. The heat has broken and we are all complaining now about too much rain and cloudy cold days. Never happy!

      Delete
  2. Your garden has really evolved, and you know how much I love it now. Those old letters are so special--particularly when written by ancestors and loved ones. Darn: too bad you burned your love letters. But I'm sure it's hard to transport everything when you move across the sea.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I came with one suitcase and later on a tea chest came by sea with a few things. And then when my mother died I brought over all the things she had saved about the family. I'm glad I did.

      Delete
  3. Isn’t it interesting the things we hold onto? Getting rid of any of these treasures should be done just like your pulling of the weedy grasses, because: ”once pulled they can never be put back..”

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You wouldn't believe some of the the things I have saved. The next in line probably won't though.

      Delete
  4. A friend of mine recently showed me the photo books she gets printed after trips from her digital photos, I'm forever mourning the lack of photo albums now we have digital cameras so I think I might follow her example. You could put your thank your into a scrapbook or one of those presentation books that has lots of clear wallets inside if you know what I mean. It is fascinating to look back and without some records we would know so little of where we have come from and what our relatives were like

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We have so many of those photo books from all our travels, and D made books for each of the boys when they turned 40 and ones of my mum and dad when they would have been 100. It's quite an expensive venture. For now I am just filing things all together so at least they are neat. I may make it into a scrap book. And of course there is the family history. Masses of notes to put into some sort of story and order. And then there is gardening to do!!

      Delete
  5. What a fun collection. It would be cool to put the older photos and the notes nto some sort of a scrap book. Then you could easily look at it all.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Currently I have the pre garden work photos on a board for when we have visitors but I will try to organize the whole lot eventually.

      Delete

I love your comments unless they are spam comments which will always be removed in comment moderation.