Knot Sew Crafty

Myrtle, Columbine and Bleeding Hearts

Now that we are approaching the combined age of 81, CMR and I have decided that we must learn something about gardening--or at least, for the sake of the neighbors, fill in the ugly bare patch in front of our house. Our neighbors were enormously patient and generous with us last summer during our epic renovation/addition and we feel that the least we can do is plant something and do a little watering.

We headed off to the local nursery, where we threw ourselves on the mercy of a very nice woman who knows a great deal about plants. We asked her to steer us toward things that would require very little maintenance and would be hard for us to kill. She told us many things about soil and dead-heading and root systems and zones and perennials and annuals, and I retained enough to get the plants we bought into the ground. Does anyone have a suggestion of a good gardening book for beginners? We might just have to go back and see that nice woman again.

Does gardening count as a craft?

P.S. Our friend Lance alerted us to a very cool website he and some other folks started, called Greenthumbr. It is chock full of great gardening info and fun, and if you have even the vaguest interest in greenery, you should check it out.

Blume

The earth laughs in flowers.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

I will be the gladdest thing under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
And not pick one.
- Edna St. Vincent Millay

When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it,
it's your world for the moment. I want to give that world to
someone else. Most people in the city rush around so,
they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see
it whether they want to or not.
- Georgia O'Keeffe

People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.
- Iris Murdoch