We were up very early this morning, getting ready for the Garden Tour, and I made a list of the stuff I thought had to be done. We even finished it all in time to go see the houses on the tour before ours, which was surprising.
The pond was in fine form, with water lilies blooming, and hungry fish. There’d been a pond at an earlier house on the tour, but the fish avoided people, so our little cuties who come right up and nibble on your fingers were quite the hit. Yes, we spoil all our pets, why do you ask?
Probably the biggest hit of all were my window boxes. Even with all my griping and all the rain, it looks like I dead-headed them just about perfectly, because they were all in fine form and blooming madly. I had several people ask me if I did them professionally, or would I take money to do their’s? Interesting possibility, that. Wouldn’t it be nice to make money that way instead of traveling all the time?
I felt like all our hard work was worth it. “Oh, Lisa, it’s so lovely!” “How elegant” “so pretty”. Being validated was cool. I love my garden, and showing it off to our community was really nice and so well received.
For the food portion, I borrowed Ginny’s iron table and chairs for under the pergola, and put the food out there. It was a hit. Of course, I didn’t do anything that I’d planned because I ran out of time, but still, what I did worked, and that’s what counts.
Before the cars all showed up, and we moved all our cars out of the driveway to make room, the garden looked so pretty. The borders of the beds look so crisp and clean. We rarely see it without all the cars, bikes, etc. cluttering up the place. (What? I can’t just have a garden?) I really just enjoyed the view from the front porch, all nicely cleaned up and every single thing put away. That happens so rarely!
I have some final thoughts, after seeing the garden through other people’s eyes. The main entrance still needs work. I’m thinking about a stone wall with arch to frame the entrance. We definitely need some boundary between the driveway and the start of the garden.
The mosquito magnet needs a better home. Out and visible, it’s pretty ugly, even if it was a pretty popular item during the tour. It works, though. It definitely kept us all bug-free. The difference between the bug level at our house compared to other houses on the tour makes me think that it’s not just that we are having a dry year, but that we have a definite reduction in the number of our bugs.
