I’ve been an avid gardener since I was 8 years old. Gardening always meant flowers. And scent — glorious haunting fragrances — that follow me through life.
And flowers also meant fistfuls of color to cut and bring indoors. And sometimes one small vase of flowers would scent the entire house.
So that is how I still garden today….
I look for plants with lovely flowers (or leaves or stems or scent) that keep me in the garden or that can be cut to bring indoors… except, these days I’m not as willing to coddle flowers or spend countless hours and dollars gardening with plants that take special care. Yes… I do still have one or two plants that need to be dragged into the garage to overwinter because they cannot survive our winters — but they are precious few and far between!
Now I fill my garden with diehard favorites that survive and flourish without a lot of care. Many seem to thrive on benign neglect — which is just fine by me.
I actively seek out plants that are deer and disease resistant & that love the hot humid weather and hard packed clay soil so prevalent in my central Virginia garden. I do little supplemental watering and don’t have a sprinkler system. The watering that occurs is done by hand by me or my (incredibly tolerant) hubby. I try to fill my garden with plants that don’t need daily attention, that flower for long periods, provide interest in multiple seasons and won’t perish if I’m off on an adventure somewhere else.
Life’s too short not to have fun — in the garden and in life!