Grateful for my space

I was just out deadheading the heliotrope.  Probably for the last time this season.  I plant it for my mom every year, she brought me some from Paris one year in sachets.  I doubt it will bloom again before we put the garden to bed but I do this to be in my space.  The smell is intoxicating at times and brings good memories of mom.

I did the same with the geraniums almost two weeks ago and their bright pink blooms are up and out and ready to provide some last beauty.  There are 3 pots of petunias that have decided to call it a summer.  Two more are still sprouting magenta blooms hanging on to the sunny days until the end.  The pots of impatiens by the birdhouse and trees in the yard are still blooming pale pink, the magenta pots behind the garage are almost ready to go to sleep for winter.

We live in a wooded area next to the river.  As I stand on the deck, a breeze blows quietly through and the elm and boxelder leaves fall like gentle rain into the yard where the hubs mowed the grass two days ago in the afternoon.  Soon the colors will be full-blown as they are in the habit of doing this time of year.  After that, all that will remain are the red oak leaves that will fall as late as the first snow or after creating a blanket of sleep for my beloved garden to protect from the hard winters we have.

There are violets that I brought from my grandmother's house when mom sold it.  I dug a clump of white and a clump of purple and dropped them in the ground hoping for a regeneration.  They have proliferated to nearly cover a good portion of the backyard and create a legacy I treasure.  There are the lillies of the valley I took from my parents house when I had to say my final goodbyes and I planted nearly 10 years ago near the violets.  I have fertilized, prayed, protected and those damned things simply do nothing more than survive and nothing more despite my best efforts. They were my mother's favorite and somehow I think she is thumbing her nose at me :)

I plant heliotrope and moss rose for my mom.  Memories of a gift and an item from her own garden she always planted.  Moss rose planted in one of her favorite containers I have from her space.  I have 3 small cast iron pots of my dad's that he used in his workshop.  I plant them most years with impatiens and put them on the patio tables for him.  Our first pup Tessa loved to rub her nose in my Gerbera daisy and I plant one for her.  Max, our second pup, loved to eat my tomatoes off the vine and I plant a plant or two in the huge pots for him.  Chico loved to lay by St. Francis in the violets, and his statue is there (there is a picture of the two of them in a previous post.)  Maya loved laying near the urn, in the violets, in the snow-on-the-moutain, next to the gazing ball...anywhere she could be near me while I worked my space.  She left us yesterday morning to move to Heaven so I think I will designate the urn hers and plant the pink impatiens she laid next to so much this summer.

I walk and take it in, the back yard with its beautiful hostas, ferns, coral bells, bleeding hearts, astilbe, and know it will return soon.  Not soon enough.

I planted asters in the old tomato garden on the west side of the house when we lost Chico last year.  Those are his.   Some made it, some I replaced a couple of weeks ago.  They are a beautiful late summer display of purple for our sweet blind boy who loved my purple roses once upon a time.

The front garden is an enormous space with no rhyme or reason except that all are perennials.  Lungwort, spider wort, many types of lilies, bee balm, lamb's ear, cranesbill, coneflowers in 3 different colors, irises from my mother's garden, columbine, rudebeckia, and several other flowers I simply can't remember the name of.  This year, despite my complete neglect of it, that space provided the most beautiful display I've had in years.  I didn't weed, fertilize or tend to any of it because my time was spent taking care of a pup sick with cancer and a growing workload.  But my space seemed to know that this house needed some cheer and for several weeks provided stunning displays of color.  I cut the stargazers to form a bouquet that last 2 weeks and filled the house with a warm, heady scent of summer and memories of weddings.  The other flowers were cut into bunches that rival those at our farmers' markets.  In the spring, the tiny grape hyacinths, crocus, and spring beauties I planted will be the first to show their tiny heads and tell me it is time to start planning what I will do and pot and grow.

The clematis has not only climbed and taken over the arbor but sprouted like Audrey 2 from Little Shop of Horrors way out next to the garage and on the other side of the man cave at least 50 yards from where it was first put in.  It is a beautiful fall clematis, lemon yellow.

The lilac bushes are now enormous and when they bloom in spring they form a wall of purple that we can smell the whole 126 feet up the driveway to the deck.  It's scent will fill the house on a breezy spring day when the windows are open.  I cut bunches and put them all over the house to keep spring as long as possible in our home.

We have a lovely deck with the house plants on the railing.  Chairs that are "retro" now but came from my grandmother's porch sit there in bright primary colors.  There are string lights of hot air balloons that run all over from deck to tree, to tree, to tree and back to the garage that make the yard magical in the summer night.  In winter we replace the delicate hot air balloons with the silly plastic string lights of tiki masks, palm trees, sea shells, pink flamingos and the like knowing they will make us smile through the snow and harsh winter but weather the season better than the delicate summer strings.  The deck sports a lighted palm tree with the trunk lit in white rope lights and the 4 wire "leaves" in green rope lights.  The hubs calls it my "Jimmy Buffet Christmas tree."  When the woods are bare in winter and it lights up on the timer at night, you can see it from the road next to our house.  It has been there nearly 10 years and makes me smile every single time it lights up.  The deck has a beautiful dining set we eat dinner on nearly every summer night.  What a funny eclectic spot :)

The patio has beautiful furniture that we lay on and we light the chimnea filled with pinion wood and listen to the crickets and frogs in the night air.  The hubs put up a huge piece of foam core on the back of the garage a couple of years ago and we love our summer nights with the laptop and projector showing movies on that "screen" in the warm evening air.  Movie night on the patio...nothing like it.

There is a bird house where the chickadees nest and the sign from our honeymoon spot and second home that cautions, in Spanish, that the space is to be used by hotel guests only :)  Our honeymoon space was wiped out by hurricane Wilma never to return, this is our memory in our space here from our time spent in paradise there.

I planted forsythia bushes for my father-in-law.  When he died in April one year in New Jersey, they were in prolific bloom and could not help but think of the irony of his move to Heaven and the beauty of what spring was sending.  Each year they get bigger and fuller and remind me of his love and laughter.

My aunt's beloved rocker is on the front porch.  The hubs goes out and sits in it to smoke an occasional cigar.  His time with her...they loved one another.  There is the huge wind chime on the corner of the garage that sings a deep and inspirational melody when I am laying on the  patio.

I have my mother's Japanese lantern on the patio behind the garage, she treasured it.  I have funny things that are memories all over my space...the park bench in the front yard under the maple tree that the hubs bought me one year.  The maple tree where family pictures were taken a few years back.  The little statue of a bone that my daughters bought when  Chico died and is in his "space." The statue of a little girl that was my mom's, the one of a sitting girl that my brother bought me for Christmas.  It's not one of those gaudy, 500 pieces in the yard spaces.  It is a few of those beautiful pieces with memories spots.

There are the visitors, the deer we feed and the silly black squirrel running everywhere.  The chipmunks tormenting the pups.  The bunnies who nest in my garden.  The birds I love to watch.  Cardinals that nest in the arbor every single year and whose babies we have watched quietly as they took their first flight with mom and dad calling to them from the fence.  The robins that come by the dozens to the bird bath.

My space is glorious, healing, quieting, calming, rejuvenating, peaceful.  I read there, walk there, nap there.  The pups love it out there, the ones in flesh and ones in spirit.  Each year there are the traditions of it and the new entries into it.  There is a legacy there, my own created and one from a place I still call home and my heart aches for still.

Today we are going to the ballgame since we have had tickets from season's start.  The last game of the regular season.  Sooner than later we will put my space to bed for the winter.  But later tonight and tomorrow, I will spend some time healing my heart there.  God gave me a great place and I want to spend some time in it before it is called to rest and sleep to get ready for a new year and my new adventures in it.  I want to walk and take in the last of my space's beauty and remember my sweet pup that moved to Heaven yesterday and her love for my space and supervising me as I worked in it.  Her memorial is to come but I think the words will fill my heart being in my space, and the one she loved so much with me.

I am grateful for my space and the incredible beauty in it and what it provides me as a palette.  I am beyond blessed.