Growing New in 2008 Pt. 2

If any neighbors are around to see your kneeling action it works even better :~)

Does it matter the day of the week? (hopes not)

Any eighth day of the week will appease the Garden Gods.

Perfect for me. I think I like these Garden Gods.

The gods have listened! It's a beautiful morning!

Hey I did some gardening tonight - rearranged some plants and made room for 3 more helenium I am getting in a trade. That will bring me up to 12 kinds which I think is a world record.LOL

Does your voice get funny if you inhale helenium??

You might lose it totally I think.

Keith Richards probably tried it.

That was him then!

Ha
Ha
Ha
Ha
Ha!

was that before or after the coconut incident?

I think he was inhaling dad in the tree - that's why he fell out...

Just started a shade garden:
transplanted Aruncus
Dicentra
Huchera "caramel"
the aruncus was donated by my daughter, dicentra was a divide frome a huge one in another garden,
Huchera was one of three bought and planted last summer, one died, one is doing well in another spot, I transplanted one that was struggling, at $15.00 each last year I couldn't toss it.

Oh, brain damage. (Keith Richards falling out of tree.)

This message was edited May 6, 2008 12:32 PM

the other half with goats beard and bleeding heart and a few impatiens thrown in for good measure.

Jo Ann ~
That's a gorgeous bit of work you have done there. It will give you and your family many hours of enjoyment, I'm sure.

Thanks, too, for listing off some of the more shade-loving plants. Anna and I were looking into a shade garden for part of the back hill.

This is actually my daughters space.( we sold our houses last summer and bought this 3000 sq.ft. with nice garden plots)
The shade garden ,unfortunatly had a 4mil thick contractors cloth laid down under the tree line ,with mulch on top.
We noticed the few struggling plants when we moved in
I ripped up the plastic between two trees and we will get deeper digs for the plants she wants.
I have to be careful not to interfere but between you and me, I would like to see some of those huge blue leaf and yellow leaf hostas and in the front some "foam flower" 'Bergenia"
and more huchera, and maybe a dark leaved white fox lily.
I'm not good with most plant names but DG'ers all apeak the same language.

Yes, we do speak the same language.

I am in a similar situation. My daughter and her DH own the house and the grounds. I am the live-in grandma, chief cook and bottle washer, and sometimes (if I feel like it) housekeeper. My daughter, Anna, designs and plans the gardens, and plants them, too - for the most part. I keep the gardening records and weed and sometimes plant.

So see? You and I speak the very same language!

I am also the live in gramma.
I design the gardens. I have three that are small and can do as I wish, thats as much digging and bending over as I can manage. She has the only full sun garden. If there was a sun plant I wanted to have I'm sure she would find room in the sun garden.
I check with her before I plant anywhere else.
I also have 13 large containers to garden in. It's enough.
I keep my own records, I don't think she is interested in all that data.
I do my own cooking and clear the kitchen before they come home. I pay for a cleaning service as my contribution to the house expenses.
I have a suite of rooms,living,bedroom-office and bathroom, my art studio is in the basement.
It's a really good deal. I entertain my friends duering the day,they're all retired. She entertains at night, works out well.
The foam flower I mentioned earlier is"tiarella" good at the border.

Well, at least I have my own bedroom ~ LOL!
It would be nice to have a few rooms, but I have enough trouble just keeping their kitchen cleaned up every day. Not that I'm lazy ... I just can find better things to do, like play with the grands, or dig up some weeds, ya know?

I like living with my grandchildren. My grandson is finishing his soph. year and is due home for the summer.
My grand daughter will be a senior in HS, spends most of the time in her room.
I would never know about their progress if I didn't live here.
I didn't really want to move, I'm not that old but I realize if I hadn't done it when I did, I wouldn't be able to pack and make decissions in ten years.
They certainly made it worth my while.

Oh, those are very worthwhile points both of you make. I have the growing up children. I hope one of my daughters will be kind enough (and stable enough) to be able to take me in, at some point. I see what my grandparents did --- interesting choices, but not really the choices I would or could afford to make. Then I see MY parents' generation, and wonder what WE will do with ourselves in another 15 years. Candyce and JoAnn, you both sound like you have thought your situations through with your families carefully and come to an arrangement that works for everybody! (Especially, I bet, the grandchildren.)

Don't ask my grandchildren! ~LOL~
The teen-aged granddaughter would rather I not be around sometimes!

But the little ones, well, that's another story.

JoAnn and Candyace- My older sis did the same thing and moved in with her son and dil and their 2 kids. I thought she was nuts. They def try to rely on her way too much as she works full time as a school teacher, she's only 58.

I appreciate all your support:
I have four daughters- -all grown --ages 53-48 raised them alone .
The one I live with is the second. She talked about my living with them when I was fifty. So it wasn't sudden, Iv' had 20 years to think about it.
This is quite a common situ. there are two other grandmothers living with children in this development.
As a competetive Atype professional artist it was a diffacult choice but my body didn't get the milage guarantee of some new cars and not what I expected.
I am by no means frail and sickly not in the least, The arthritice just galloped over me and I had a hard time managing the laundry in the basement and the ice on the driveway and the steps getting into the house with wood and groceries in the winter ----- some of you can fill in the blanks.

It's odd but when your in the situation it doesn't seem so bad.
Now that I'm here I can see it was the right thing to do.

Oh, I agree with you entirely, Jo Ann. I live with my middle daughter, too, and I love (almost) every minute of it. There are some times when I feel like I'm being taken advantage of, but those are few and far between. I simply love what I do, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Amen,

Jo Anne - that's a lovely shade garden you have begun! I can't wait to see it when the plants have filled out. You and Candyce are both such contributors, and I am sure your families enjoy having you there! They are very fortunate! I didn't really know my grandparents very well. My loss!

Thankfully, I knew my paternal grandparents very well. Almost all I know about being a grandma, I learned from them.

My maternal grandparents were the poster people for the American Farm Family. My grandmother listened to every idea I ever had and was patient when I wanted to stirr the cookie dough, also taught me to crack eggs, sew doll clothes and make bird houses, fly home made kites. Everything I know about my relationship to the natueral world ,I learned from her,this includes the parallels to the natuer of animals and human beings.
I remember having an idea to make machines that worked for us, like the computer.
She never discouraged me, let me go down in defeat and was there when I cried.
She was a truly great woman, and my grandfather was no slouch either. That's for another time.
I forgot what this thread was about.
OHHHHH gardening.

Nice story Jo Ann. I loved hearing about your grandmother.

They were dairy farmers and church goers. Grandfather taught sunday school until every one in the class was dead, some 65 years.

My grandmother taught me about living without electricity, as her farm was waaaayyy out in the nowhere!!

She also read me Winnie-the-Pooh, a chapter a night when I spent my summers with her and grandpa. When the movie came out, I thought that no one would ever sound like my grandmother did when speaking Eyeore! But, when I heard Eyeore speak in the movie, it was with the same slow speech and inflection that my grandmother had used years ago.

love eeyore

How funny, Candyce! I love Eyeore.

I have to say as much as I love Winnie the pooh, my girls were never interested in his stories, it was sad for me..........Clem

My boys liked the stories and the movies.

Vic, you're lucky, and they are still little, my girls are old, old like us 15 and 16..........oops i wish I was 16 still.........LOL, Clem

My DD wanted to do Oryannas room in purple with butterflies and dragonflies......Ory has other idea's. At almost 5 month old she is already a girl who knows what she likes, and she likes Pooh!
As soon as pooh comes on TV, or she see's her stuffed Pooh or hears the theme song....her arms start flapping and she looks like she might fly away!