I love vegetable gardening. For a long time that was about the only type of gardening I enjoyed. Flowers can be high maintenance, and I’m just not into high maintenance things! I tend to kill them despite all good intentions to the contrary. However, when we moved to Rochester, I inherited some flower beds in this beautiful place we call home, and I kind of had to expand my gardening horizons.

Weeding. Let’s be honest, nobody likes weeding. And weeding a bunch of flower beds filled with plants that I had no great love for… well that was about the worst “fun” a girl could have on a Saturday! However, each year I’ve managed to get it mostly taken care of. This year, Brian’s mom took care of the lion’s share of that work while she visited. I appreciated that more than I can say!

This year, we decided to change things up a little bit. We tore out every single living thing plus a decorative wash basin from the very front flower bed. With the help of my husband and my mother-in-law, I found a happy little dwarf Alberta spruce and planted it in the middle of that bed. This coming weekend, we’ll put some happy little flowers in to finish that off.

Tonight I planted a clematis and tended to a little transplanted rhododendron. The poor thing has spent idontknowhowlong baking in a full sun flower bed, and I hadn’t seen much in terms of life signs since we moved here. I felt sorry for it, because I love rhododendrons, and because I knew it was just hanging on to life because it was in the wrong spot. (not going to get all philosophical about how people do that too) So this year, I gave it a new home in a bed where it will get both shade and sun. In the few days that have passed since I moved it, it has grown some new leaves and I see some other signs of life.

Next up: tomatoes. Having decided against putting in a larger veggie garden, I’m going to use an unused flower bed at the side of the garage. It’s a warm sunny spot, just the kind of place where tomato plants like to hang out. I’m looking forward to a yummy harvest later this summer.

So, my black thumb seems to be on the way out, and I can’t say I’ll miss it. I love to learn new things, and the care & feeding of decorative plants is proving to be more fun than I thought it would be!