Garden Magic

Last summer, after a visit with the grandparents in Los Angeles, my Mr. Bloom was packing up the car, preparing for our drive home. I was inside the house helping Little Mr. with his shoes when big Mr. B. came running in. He said, "You have to talk to your father. For some reason he is filling the car with all these gigantic plants... We don't have room! Where are we going to put all these plants!" I went outside, and sure enough, my father was trying to find space for 2 enormous buckets full of dirt and leaves. One bucket had a bunch of clivia plants he had dug out of his garden and the other bucket contained a bunch of cymbidium orchid plants. I rearranged a few things in the car and whispered to Sweet Husband that I'd figure out what to do with the plants later, when we got home.

The clivia went into the ground in our garden but I don't think they like where I planted them -- (too much shade) so I'll have to move them. Then I found some orchid potting mix and stuffed the cymbidiums into 2 large terra-cotta pots which had been lying around. I dumped them on back patio and forgot about them. I've never had luck with orchids so I figured these weren't worth the effort.

Yesterday, I went with Sweet Child into the garden (to release yet more caterpillars he'd found.) Lo & behold, orchids! It feels like magic...

Truly, our whole garden feels like magic. When we moved into our house 9 years ago the garden was a pile of dirt and weeds. There was a fence cutting off the back half of the garden, and the area behind the fence was impenetrable with brush, overgrown oak & ponderosa pines. There was garbage & broken glass which had been tossed over this "half-way" fence by the former owner (out of sight, out of mind) and yet more garbage dumped by passers-by from the road running behind the property. I wish I had some "before" photos... it was sad and depressing.

We've worked hard on this garden... and lest you think things around here are fancy & palatial because of the giant chess-piece in the middle of the garden... I found the cement thing in a statuary supply salvage shed and they practically paid me to take it away!


These days our hillside is perfect for sliding and we are planning our first vegetable garden in a small side yard. I'm looking forward to more garden magic as spring progresses into summer and we bring in our first tomatoes...