My Gardening Confession

On facebook I have the best garden ever.

Mid May to early June, I went through a phase where if we went somewhere that had flowers, we’d pick some and plant them in the garden. I’d post updates to my facebook and eventually everyone, including my husband, assumed that I have this really diverse and flourishing garden.

Then the lillies bloomed!With over 192 bulbs, my garden truly was a sight!

 

“I can’t wait to see the garden you’ve been working hard on” ~ Mr. A

 I get really passionate about gardening when spring hits. I sketch up ideas in my head of all the pretty flowers and how one day I’ll find a photographer from HGTV at my doorstep who wants to photo my award winning lillies.

After awhile though, weeding, watering, and lily beetle hunting becomes easier to push off and ignore. I have more important things to do like go to the beach and sleep in! I think my desire to garden is more like a spring time sickness where I spend lots of money on things I don’t expect to keep alive.

 

Every so often though, like when it has just rained and the flowers are all dewwy and bright, I grab my camera and post on facebook a photo of my garden. And I get an influx of comments about how beautiful my garden is. And for awhile, I think that maybe I am not that bad at gardening after all.

The only difference between my gardening skills from last year to this year is that I know a lot more about digital photography. I learned all about angles and cropping photos so you can accentuate the good in a shot and hide the not so good. I also really haven’t invited anyone over, so…… no witnesses….

It’s time to be honest though, I have a yellow thumb at best with green thumb ambitions.

I don’t have the gardening stamina to truly be a great gardener.

Most of what survives and thrives in this garden was planted by the previous owner.

 

Here is a front shot of my garden this morning:

 

It is not the perfect garden that everyone on my facebook thread assumes it to be. It’s not overflowing with fauna, in fact there is more empty spacing than flowers.

Isn’t that just like social media, though? I decide what the world sees and for the most part most people assume it’s the truth. I can spin the perfect life for myself, but that extends only to the digital world and maybe in chance encounters in the public.

Come home with me and you’ll see that not everything is perfect. And that’s ok, because despite all the gaping holes where things died in my garden, I always learn more each year.

For the moments I capture, my garden becomes the most beautiful garden in the world to me. And since I am the one that looks at it everyday, I am the only one that matters.

Sometimes, when your life feels like a sparce garden, it’s necessary to stop and capture the beautiful moments. They may feel far and few inbetween, but they can be found. It’s just a matter of learning how to look at things from a new angle and crop to accentuate the good and get rid of the not so good 😉

 

 

Here’s to all the beautiful flowers I bought that did not survive Faithie’s lack of a green thumb:

 (my kids claim that a rabbit ate these)

 

 

 

 

 (these are perrenials, so they might appear again… )