Spring Up!

I miss my old backyard! We moved into our first home about a year after my husband and I were married and then stayed there for 23 years. I know that is a long time. As I sit in my new house of just over two years, I long for the view I had from my old living room window.
For as much as I miss my wonderful garden, I have to recognize that it did not “spring up” over night. I now have the opportunity to begin again with my blank slate of a back yard. Now when I say blank slate you may take my words literally for there is absolutely nothing in my back yard except for a few junipers hidden out of site on a small hill and a flat postage size area of Bermuda grass. Gone are the days of ¾ acre lots with beautiful hardwood trees. Now we have a lot barely bigger than the house that sits upon it, but in an effort to avoid complaining (I really do love my new house) I am trying to focus on the process of transforming my blank slate into something that will motivate me to open the blinds across the back of my house. I notice that they remain closed most days simply because I recognize that to open them will lead to disappointment. The reality is that there is nothing worth looking at. However now that spring is here again I have the opportunity to begin, God willing that the drought conditions will lessen I may even plant a few trees.
I can see it in my mind, I even have it plotted out on a large piece of graph paper. All that is left is to acquire the funds and invest the sweat equity. I have to remember all those Saturday mornings bent over my old backyard spading up the hard red clay. Learning from mistakes, pulling weeds, and pulling weeds and pulling more weeds. I have to remember the years of moving bushes around thinning out iris beds, planting vegetable gardens, borders of annuals, all this took time, years even and I must again practice the art of patience.
I have wonderful memories of sitting on my garden bench with my coffee, bible in my lap as the morning breeze would brush through the dogwoods and then move through the stand of tall yellow iris. The sound the leaves and blossoms made as they brushed against each other. The hummingbirds as they hovered over the right red canna lilies. The morning dew on the wide leaves of the low growing hosta. The deep green of the grass, the pale salmon color and bright fuchsia of the azaleas the deep purple of my grandmother’s heirloom iris. The smell of the rosemary bush, the small splashing noises as the sparrows had their morning shower in the birdbath under the dogwood. I remember all of this and I want it back desperately.
I can feel it! The urge to sink my hands into the dirt. The smell of the soil, the earthy organic fragrance, the cool feel of it as you press the seedlings down into it. The anticipation of daily checking on the progress of tiny little plants. The excitement of finding a new blossom or picking the first tomato of the season. There really is nothing better.
So, I go in search of my garden gloves, loping shears and shovel.