How Does Your Garden Grow?

Michael and I made a quick run to Lowe's yesterday and bought just about every flowering plant that they had for sale! I really do think that we cleaned them out of New Guinnea Impatiens! On the way home, Michael suggested that we get our little friend, Sophie, to help us in the yard. Sophie is the girl we took to the Inman Park festival a couple of weeks ago. Since then, Sophie and her Moms have moved into our neighborhood. She hasn't met a lot of kids to play with yet, and she loves to work in the yard (Michael had her edging the yard last week when he babysat her).

So, while I unloaded the car, Michael went down the street to pick up Sophie. If you haven't met Sophie, I need to describe her for you-- she's the "girliest" girl you've ever met. She loves playing dress up, she loves jewelry and accessories, etc. So, it really surprised me that she liked to get dirty! And her fascination with worms and roly-poly's was pretty cool, too. While I was digging up the garden, Sophie was rescuing all of the unearthed worms and putting them into a flower garden that was safe from impending shovel blades. She was afraid that I might cut some of the worms in half with my shovel. I taught her a little about worms-- if you cut one in half, it doesn't kill them. As far as I know, each half of the worm will become a fully functioning worm again. To test the theory, Sophie grabbed one of the worms that I had severed and in a few minutes she showed me that she now had 4 worms-- she had ripped the severed worm in half again. So much for my lesson on worm anatomy! I took her mind off of torturing innocent animals by pointing out that I had just unearthed a family of roly-polys.

Our friend Sara (or is it spelled "Sarah"?) came

by to visit on her way to work. Of course, she couldn't get dirty like the rest of us, so we named her the official photographer of the garden-planting festival. She got some great shots of us hard at work!

We had a great time playing in the dirt, and playing with Sophie. Michael even attempted to teach her to sing "from the diaphragm", in preparation for an upcoming show that she's performing in at school.

Sophie left us for a little while to play with the neighborhood kids across the street ("Popsicle" and her gang). While they were playing, Michael and I practiced our cartwheels in the front yard. I can only imagine what the neighbors think of us, our gardens and our front yard acrobatics!

The garden turned out to be incredible when we were finished. But it was still missing something. I went back to Lowe's today and got the few things that I regretted not buying yesterday-- a trellis for the walkway, and lots of solar floodlights and torch lights! The trellis has a gate on it, but I opted to leave the gate in the open position-- there really is no need for us to have to open the gate or walk around it every time we come home. Michael hasn't seen the trellis gate yet, but I told him about it when he called tonight. He suggested we put some white Christmas lights on it and leave them up all year long. God, I'm rubbing off on him already! I love the idea!

I installed 16 new solar lights in the front garden today. I already had about a dozen other Malibu lights, and of course there are pond lights in and around the water garden already. Throw in the spot lights that Michael got from Ashante's "trunk sale" and the Christmas lights that we have yet to hang, and I'm afraid that the pilots flying into Hartsfield might confuse our yard for a landing strip!

The front yard is coming together and I'm really proud of it. If I don't see a "Yard of the Month" sign in my front yard soon, I might just have to make one myself! I think we've earned it!