I am proud...

This post is inspired by Melba's Mixed Media Memoirs. Though it is neither mixed media nor really a look at my past, it was a result of her prompt this week, "I am proud..."

I am proud of our garden.

Recently I've written a bit about some of the longing I've had around "home." Today, it was so nice to realize that one place where I feel we've made real, meaningful progress is our garden. When we moved in (as you can see by the first picture) our tiny yard was just a square of dirt filled with junk left behind by the previous owners. We were astonished by just how much junk. Buried in the ground we found planks of wood, broken pots, bricks, hunks of concrete, marble, patio stones, nails, glass, beer caps, you name it. I started believing that by cleaning out all of this mess, we were salvaging this little patch of land, rescuing it from all the abuse and neglect it had suffered over the years. It was a real labour of love.

Never before have we had a yard or a garden, so most of what we did next was guessing or based on suggestions from others. Previously Justin had no interest in gardening whatsoever and frankly, he wasn't sure he would. I, on the other hand, was at least armed with an amazing array of flower names. On a walk with my mom last year I realized where I had gotten that from. As we strolled, she would say, "Oh, look at that forsythia," "What a beautiful euonymus." She's been naming flowers and plants like that since I was a baby.

So a tidbit of knowledge but a handful of hope, we started first by sowing grass seed, watching it and watering it tenderly. We'd run out at the end of the day to see if it was sprouting. It took a while and several reseedings but it's looking a happy shade of green. And we started planting. I'd come home with something every chance I got. I really wanted a garden filled with mostly green and white (I am a sucker for white flowers) with small touches of pink and blue. This colour scheme, by the way, my sister Suzie used to create for me a beautiful beaded necklace called "Jamie's Garden."

I know that it takes time to build a garden. Every day I go out there to see what changes have happened, what's blooming, whether the sprouts are hanging on. And today when I came home, Justin out of the blue said to me, "The garden looked beautiful today." I am so proud.