Isn’t Spring the best? I absolutely love this time of year.
I’ve always loved beautiful gardens, but I’d never taken the time to try to have one of my own. When we moved into our current house in 2015, we inherited a few hostas and a rose bush from the previous owners. I could only manage to keep these looking halfway decent for about a month or so each Spring. The house has two large flower beds that, sadly, got little to no attention once we moved in.
This changed a little over a year ago. In January of 2018, my mom was diagnosed with cancer. Mentally and emotionally this was one of the hardest times in my life. By nature, I have always been a problem-solver. If something is wrong, I have to find a way to fix it. If someone is having a problem in their life, I want to help them figure out how to make it better. But this was not a problem I could fix, and I had no idea how to process any of the emotions I was feeling.
One evening (I think it was in March), I started taking out my frustration on the weeds that were growing in the flower beds; I’m still not sure why I started, but I ended up staying outside with a headlamp on pulling-up weeds and dead plants until around 10:30 that night. I’m sure I looked like I had lost my mind. I kind of had. But it made me feel a little better.
After that, I had to do something with the giant holes that were left, so I started reading and asking friends and family for any gardening tips.
I moved my hostas and made a shade garden in the backyard (with help from my husband, hostas are heavy); I planted sunflowers and lantana in the front for the butterflies, I learned what plants work better with different amounts of sunlight and water, but mostly, I learned how therapeutic gardening can be. I’m a mom of two young kids and I have a full time job, I didn’t need anything else to keep me busy, or to take up time in my life, but I 100% believe that gardening saved my sanity, or what was left of it at the time.
This year, my hostas came back in their new location, the rose bush is looking great, I have new lantana planted, and my elephant ears have started to come up. Spring is quickly becoming my new favorite time of the year.
