My eldest daughter's reaction to my garden

It was lovely to have my eldest daughter visiting for a couple of weeks, and she wanted to write a guest post - so here it is :)

I was sitting drinking a lovely glass of wine, nibbling on salad fresh out of my mom’s garden and chatting when I noticed that the ground was alive.  This was rather disconcerting until I discovered that the movement was hundreds of “frogs” which my mother quickly corrected me were actually toads.  I was enthralled by the steady hop, hop, hop –somehow all in sync.  The remainder of the evening was spent happily watching the toads move, the sky darken and the flowers fall from the lychee tree.

Here is a cute frog...........

and here is an ugly toad...

As her blog follower’s you may not know my mother’s gardening history. For years and years my mother wanted a garden. And every time she got one and built it up just like she wanted, life got in the way and took it away. I’m not a gardener, but I get plenty of garden based emails and such. It all kind of bored me and I have to admit that I always thought my mom’s gardens weren’t that nice (she is going to be really angry when she reads this…).


But this latest trip, I got to see the garden that she blogs about. And this one really is her masterpiece. Even I liked it, and it takes a lot to impress me with flowers!

I was trying to explain to my mom why I liked this garden and I said that everything is all crammed in there. She was not particularly impressed with my word choice. After a little more explanation, I realized that it was like the rainforest that we had been wandering through. Rainforests aren’t orderly. Tall trees pop up everywhere with an entire ecosystem that you can’t even see. And down below? Well don’t think you will be able to walk through that. Bushes, flowers, vines, mud puddles -everything conspires to fight for survival and the end result is a new surprise everywhere you look.
Admittedly my mom’s garden is slightly more orderly than the rainforest, but it is by far the smallest garden she has worked in. And as she seems to still want the same quantity of plants, she has figured out how to make them all work together in a crazy jumble that is just full of surprises and life.

One example is the wind chimes. You can walk down the length of the house ringing a different wind chime at every step. Or for example the flowers. One day my step father was frustrated with all the flowers that were covering the pathway, chairs and table. He spent the entire day sweeping and hosing. But by evening, the soft blanket of lychee flowers was covering everything again.
Up in the tree tree lychee's were forming.....

 

One day my mother sent me out to see her pineapple. I searched high and low for it. I came back to report that there was no pineapple. She marched me back out there, dug through a pile of leaves which had decided to bury it and pointed to the funniest little thing (I had no idea pineapples grew like that)!

I know my mom shows you photos of all the things she likes about her garden, but I thought you should see a post about how many wonderful things are in her garden despite her best intentions. That garden is alive with toads, flowers and snakes (She isn’t going to like hearing that either) and somehow it all works together beautifully creating a peaceful space that really feels natural and calming.