Exploring!

Monday, March 10, 2008

One thing that my husband and I love to do together besides gardening, is to go exploring nurseries and garden centers and other gardens all over the place. In fact, the way we met was that we were both working at a garden center. He was the manager for 15 years and I was the new Office Manager. We shared a passion for plants. He "courted" me by bringing me flowers almost every day, from his own gardens. He had 8 acres with gardens on it that were featured in Southern Living magazine. It has been his passion since he was a young boy. We recently took a trip to one of our favorite nursery/garden centers; Tallahassee Nurseries. The magnolias were blooming and a lot of flowering trees and bushes. That's the great thing about Florida. You can ALMOST garden year round! They have a very large Cherry tree of some kind in the parking lot that has been planted there for years. It was blooming profusely and very beautiful. I took some pictures of it. Now I have to figure out how to put pictures on here. We also went to Richbourg Nursery in Monticello. This nursery sells only Camellias and Azaleas. It's a mom and pop operation with a fantastic selection. We came home that day with 25 more Camellias to add to our collection. We also went to a little nursery right here in the town where we live and bought some blueberry bushes. And so our gardening season for this year begins! Now we have at least 75 plants that we need to get planted. Last week we spent a few days working in our gardens. In the summer of 2005 we bought a brand new home. Our yard was nothing but a sand pit. It has been 2 1/2 years. We've gotten a lot accomplished but still have so much more to do as time, money and energy permit. Anyway, we just planted a wall of Will Flemmings across the side entrance to our back yard. They will look stunning when they take off. We also planted a new Japanese Maple and 3 Cherry trees. We have outlined some beds with Liriope. As I said, there is still so much to do. But we have finally gotten the palette ready to really get some big time planting done. We have been collecting plants for years and also have the ones that have travelled with us from our 8 acre home that we sold in order to move to Pennsylvania and help care for my mother. We moved back here in 2005 and many of our most loved plants have travelled back and forth with us. We are only on 1/2 acre now so what we can do is more limited. But as we get older, I think this just may be the perfect size to upkeep once all this planting is done. We have had to chop trees down, trim some, amend soil, lay sod, and so many things to get it ready. We spent the first two years working on the front yard and the side yard Perennial Garden. So now we are working on the back yard and we are very excited because it is finally starting to look like something. It will certainly be our sanctuary. The middle garden in the back yard, we have devoted to our two children who are in heaven; Olivia Therese & Drayton Quinn. (We named Drayton after The Drayton family from the Magnolia Gardens Plantation in South Carolina. Rev. John Drayton was the first to bring Camellia Japonicas & Azaleas to America)http://www.magnoliaplantation.com/grounds_camellia.html This memory garden for our babies will only have pinks, whites and of course the green foliage. It has a birdbath now and we are in search of the perfect fountain for it. Can't wait until all of this is done. We are hoping to get the whole yard fenced in soon. I love my privacy and hate being able to see the neighbors and vice versa when out in the yard. No offense, I am just not much of a people person anymore. I like to be alone with my loved ones and don't have much patience for small talk. I am just fine with my husband and my dogs & cats. Funny, I am becoming the weird old lady of the neighborhood. You know the one I mean. Every neighborhood has at least one. I prefer my pets & plants to people! It's not as bad as I am making it sound really. I can be nice when I have to be and I do care about people. BUT when I am at home, LEAVE ME ALONE!!! I only have so much social energy to give! So, back to the garden. I am going to try to figure out how to get some of those pictures on here. You'll see if I succeed or not!