Welcome to Saturday Morning Garden Blogging!
Vol. 12.24
At the end of May we packed up the Jeep, loaded up Jaxon and his accoutrements, and headed north to Iowa for a family reunion. Going home is always bittersweet; seeing family pulls at the heartstrings and rekindles thoughts of moving back “home” to be closer to the folks. But then common sense and reality step in and before you know it the visit is over and once again we’re motoring south down I-35 to the land of warmth and sunshine.
Over the past few years it has become somewhat of an expectation that when I do return to Iowa in late spring I am willingly pressed into service helping family members with their individual gardening efforts. It’s never anything major; just pulling a few weeds here and there and planting the flowers I bring along from Texas plus those that I can’t resist buying when scouring the available selections at their local garden centers. I offer advice on landscape design and suggest tweaks to various rough spots or bare patches in their gardens. This trip was no different although I was a little more hard-pressed for time than usual.
Our stay in Iowa began at mom’s place in the country because not only is her house the first one we come to geographically but it also just so happened to be closest to the small town where the family reunion was being held. It was super-convenient for me because half my relatives would all be in one place including my sisters and their kids and grandkids; I’m an uncle and great uncle multiple times over. And crashing at mom’s house is like vacationing at a mini-resort but without turn down service or masseuse. It was totally a win-win!
I may have mentioned in a previous diary how much I enjoy buying plants. A trip north gives me the opportunity to see how the plants I’ve purchased for family in the past have fared in the intervening year(s) since my last visit. Here are just a few of the plants I bought and planted for mom since she moved into her paradise by the pond:
This year I added more blue balloon flowers to the ones I planted a couple of years ago. I also planted a blue pincushion flower and white bell flowers to see how well they’d do for her. And as always I picked up several six-packs of portulaca seedlings to line the front walkway. By midsummer a reliable riot of color will greet arriving guests:
Of course I couldn’t resist getting mom a couple of annual planters for instant color:
Mom has way too many of her own flowers to capture in one diary so here are just a few highlights from the numerous flowerbeds:
We were there just a tad bit early for the lilies and daylilies; they were just beginning to bud and only a scant few managed to bloom before we left. Other flowers are still a couple of weeks away from blooming as well.
As always time flew by during our week in Iowa. We also drove another two hours to visit my dad and stepmother for a couple of days; I purchased a few dozen plants for them and dug around in their landscape and gardens a bit. An evening was also spent with my sister in NE Iowa but we didn’t have enough time together to do anything more than enjoy BBQ chicken and lots of laughter. I’ll be helping her make decisions about her garden via text and long-distance chats.
We packed in a lot of visits and activity during this trip, the least of which was time spent gardening. So by the end of the week we were fairly exhausted and ready to head south. I needed a vacation from my vacation! And while he loved every moment in Iowa and had a non-stop blast during his first major road trip, even Jaxon was worn out although I’m not so sure he was quite as ready to leave mom’s amazing mini-resort as we were:
In Iowa, corn is king!