Plants

I planted a box of bare-root peonies one October, mostly because they were half price. By May, I understood why gardeners plan their springs in the fall.

There’s a shrub in my side yard I haven’t touched in three years. No pruning, no feeding, no watering past its first summer… and it looks better than the plants I fuss over weekly.

The chain link fence came with the house. Ugly, sagging in one corner, and the first thing I saw from the kitchen window every morning.

I fell in love with weeping trees at a botanical garden. That cascading form, branches sweeping toward the ground, everything around it suddenly looking more intentional. Then I went home and measured my yard. No room for a 40-foot weeping…

I spent my first summer weeding the strip between the sidewalk and the fence. Every weekend. Down on my knees, pulling crabgrass and dandelions from bare soil that grew weeds faster than I could remove them.

The north side of our house gets maybe two hours of sun on a good day. I planted three astilbes there my first spring, expecting the fluffy pink plumes from the tag photo.

The redbud at the end of our street blooms before anything else wakes up. Pink flowers straight out of bare bark, no leaves yet, just color against gray sky.

The front of our house used to be a row of overgrown boxwoods that looked like they’d been there since the house was built.

Last spring I dumped Epsom salt around every plant in the yard because a Pinterest pin told me to. Tomatoes, roses, herbs, the blueberry bush. All of it got a generous scoop.

I wanted a real tree on the patio. Not a houseplant pretending to be one. Something with actual bark, actual height, and actual presence. The problem was the yard wasn’t ready yet and I had exactly zero ground to plant…