Days of my little life...

The garden has the scent of lemon with a hint of mint these days, and everywhere you'd look you'll see some nice green clumps of textured leaves growing among many other beauties… I’m referring to the “Lemon Balm” garden; a corner in my garden I had named it so for obvious reasons, and because of all the lemon balm growing rampant there—like a scented groundcover of sorts that I don’t really know whether if I should like it or I should not! 

You see, many many moons ago, the Fisherman used to have his very own little herb garden around here... he used to grow all sorts of culinary herbs there, then one day he planted a small lemon balm plant, and went away.  Because for years after that nobody was here to see after the gardens, this little herb grew rampant, spilled over its beds one day, and soon took possession of part of the gardens… now, what was just a little plant is threatening to take all over the entire garden, if let be…

That part of the garden where the lemon balm grows is overcrowded.  Plants are growing too close to each other there, too wild, too disorderly, too happily mingling in this sort of cottagey garden style hodgepodge of flowers, herbs and greens all in one same place, that it's driving me a little insane… too much going on there!  You get the idea. 

  

Sometimes I like it—I like the lemony scented waft brought by breezes in that part of the gardens when I go by, and I love the trace of lemon and mint on my hands when I rub the textured leaves on my skin or pull them out of the ground.  I like it with honey and butter, and I love to include stems in bouquets of summer flowers… but sometimes, I just don’t—I just don’t like them at all.  If you are not paying close attention to details, they will take over the entire garden, whether you let them or not.  They can also look like weeds, and sometimes I’m not sure if I should just go crazy and start pulling them all out or just let them be…

A momma Robin moved in as soon as everything was put back in place after the painters left.   She stole all the moss I had on one of my many flowerpots to make her nest, and made a big mess in the porch. It took me days to get her accustomed to my presence.  Every time I went outside or tried to sit on my favorite spot in the garden it was a frenzy of feathers and frantic wings, but finally, little by little she got habituated to my nearness, and now sits comfortably up in her skyscraper home, nursing baby birds. 

As far as I don’t make any sudden movement she’d be calmed and happy.  I can even sing out loud right under her, and she won’t care.

On that last day at the little white cottage when we were saying our last goodbye to the place we used to love, I did something I'll never regret doing...  I stole a rose bush!  That's right.  While the movers were busy loading up everything we own on this earth in their big gigantic truck, it occurred to me I should steal a souvenir from that dear garden I was leaving behind forever—something that could later served as a reminder of my love, dedication and hard labor.  And thus, on a most strange of an impromptu I dug up one of my Paradise roses, dumped it in an emptied flowerpot and asked the moving crew to put it along everything else in the truck, because that rose was coming home with me…

And I’m so happy I did what I did, although the house; nor the gardens, were mine anymore!  From the soil of that southern garden came this beauty, now planted in this fertile soil of our high desert…  Sorry, “New Owner” of the little white cottage.  I left you another bush of this lovely rose for you to enjoy, but this one had to be mine!  I planted the bush last winter, when I started cleaning up the garden… and now I’m finally collecting the first roses…

A spray of mint from the herb garden! 

(The Fisherman is still the owner of that parts of the garden)

Roses from my pruning the other day!

 

Even in the trash and ready to be discarded, they’re still so beautiful!

Do you love roses?

I know you do!

On my next post I’ll tell you all about my new love for succulents and I will tell you how I managed to make me a little pond in one corner of the garden in remembrance of the one we had at the little white cottage.  We visited a very old cemetery today—the oldest cemetery in continuous use in our state; full of history and interesting true stories of the truest wild-wild West kind, which first came into unsanctioned use as a burial ground soon after the area was settled in 1863.  

After roses, I love history, and I love love to revive old, forgotten stories.  One of the stories in this old cemetery tells of a sixteen-year-old girl, daughter in the family that owned the grandest hotel in our state at one point in time.  She was only sixteen in 1879 when she and her friends went to a dance.  Anna broke her neck after being thrown (or jumping) from a wagon as it ascended a steep summit.  Virtually all the city was in the streets when Anna’s body was brought into town.  The earliest recorded burial is of a little girl who died in 1864.  She was 5 years, 11 months and 5 days old.  Hers is the oldest legible grave marker in the cemetery.  But enough sad stories for now!  I love visiting old cemeteries.  Do you?  See you soon!