Non-functional gardening.

This weekend I got the chance to participate in a plant swap. A friend of a friend is a master gardener (something I have my eye on to maybe try in the future) and holds an informal plant swap every Spring. You bring what you have of excess or unwanted plants and then you take what you like. I inadvertently had an excess of tomato starts caused primarily by tomato seeds surviving the winter in the compost and then sprouting in almost all of my veggie starts. I saved a lot of them and ended up with about two dozen tomatoes sitting in my windowsill. I gave some away and I kept eight for myself and took the rest to the swap. In exchange we came away with a bag full of purple irises, a couple strawberry starts, a mystery flowering clump of plant, a pile of succulents and a black eyed susan.

Now this brings us to a whole new chapter. Landscaping. Both Mike and myself are at a little of a loss of what to do with pretty plants. The working theory is that we are going to plant the irises along a not yet built fence, along a not yet built walkway, leading up the side of the driveway to the front door. We are thinking of making little patches of rock garden from some river rocks we unearthed when excavating the patio and place the succulents in there. The other must-have for the front walkway that we will have to buy - Daphne. It's Mike's favorite and it's one of the first flowers to bloom of the year and it smells absolutely amazing.

Hopefully there will be a lot of pretty-ing of the garden and surrounding yard space this summer. We've got plans to put in at least the front fence and a walkway leading from the street, to the door and then through the garden and around to the back. We just bought our picnic table for summer meals and gatherings in the backyard. Very exciting. It's going to start looking like a real garden with purpose! Not just a collection of dirt in boxes sitting on the front lawn.