Back in the Garden

So here's our waterfall garden, midsummer. I'm pretty happy with it, except that my favorite grass, the Mexican Hair Grass at top right, seems to be getting in the way of some of the other plants...

the real story here lies down deep in the murky pond. We have a new solution to try to deal with algae...floating pond plants, an ever-running pump, and goldfish to eat the mosquito larvae!

So yesterday the kids and I made a trip to the pet store and got 5 goldfish, 50 cents a piece. It was really quite exciting, the kids' first 'pets' and my first fishes ever!!

Then this morning, the waterfall dwindled to a trickle and I was devastated to discover I had inadvertently killed 2 of our dear lovely pets, by way of the pond pump. No further details are necessary, except to say that I will not be moving on to owning a cat or dog anytime soon

)0:

The bud of a Shirley Poppy getting ready to open...some of my seeds actually grew!

Mexican Hair Grass, Balloon Flower, Ruby Red Coreopsis and Pinks next to the waterfall.

It's good to be back in my garden!

Alongside C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity (which I highly highly recommend), I've been reading a big book with beautiful pictures in it all about Monet's garden at Giverny. I saw it on my way out of the library yesterday and I just couldn't resist! He was an incredible and inspiring gardener as well as artist! Gardening is such an artistic expression, an experiment with color and form, texture and shape, if one approaches it that way...but one that has a wild and uncontrolled mind of it's own, that can't be managed like brush strokes on a canvas. I like that about it. I also like that mistakes are not final...plants can be moved, and the garden develops over time in a process, so if there's something you don't like, it can usually be fixed. Unlike painting!