The Garden

A long, long time ago -- long before Hurricane Katrina washed everything away... I once had a garden here. Mom and I worked long hours in that garden. We took happy afternoon trips to the nurseries just after Yvonne was born. Every morning and every evening I pulled weeds and searched for grubs and tenderly talked to the plants. It was beautiful.

Of course it did not survive Katrina. The storm surge washed away most of the raised flowerbeds. The saltwater killed countless shrubs and perennial flowers. The biggest loss to me were all of the bulbs and plants that my mother had added to the garden -- now gone completely. There were those 'anniversary' plants too. Dave and I had begun a tradition of buying live plants to be transferred to the garden for special occasions -- mother's day, wedding anniversary, Easter, etc... Most of those are gone now too.

This:

Is now this:


And this:

Is reduced to this:


For Valentine's Day this year - Dave brought me a Persian Lime tree & an Armstrong Satsuma... I think that was a hint. Well, I mean.. that and the 40 bags of potting soil might have been trying to tell me something...

Today is one of those miserable stormy days when I usually spend my time pacing around in front of the windows.... This morning though I decided to brave the cloudy skies and do some work outside. Yes, it's going to take a LOT of work -- but we can do this. I finished conditioning the soil and mulching in the southeast corner of the backyard this morning.... This is what it looked like last year when standing in that back corner:
We lost all three trees, four shrubs, and all of the perennials in the corner -- except for one miraculous hibiscus which seems to have been revived by the salt water.... So it's going to be many years before we can bring it back. We have decided to convert this corner into a little fruit tree grove... and so the work begins:

A huge improvement -- but still a long way to go ... our makeshift clothesline is still visible at the top of the photo....