Spring Green is Overwhelming Us!

Our irises are lavishing lavender blooms outside the family room windows. Unplanted fields are rife with the bright yellow of the wild mustard. The rains here have brought forth so much green that driving through the countryside is almost overwhelming with greeness. No wonder I claim each spring that it is my favorite time of the year. (I claim the same in autumn, of course.)

I’ve planted spring petunias in memory of my mother in the flower box that was one of the many gifts my friend Phyllis and her daughter Patti heaped on me over at Pondside Farm back in 2000 when they visited there during her Anna-Joneboro High School class reunion.

One of the two little yellow rose bushes we planted last summer survived the winter, and one did not. I bought a small inexpensive rose plant at the grocery store yesterday to replace it because I am not likely to get to the plant nursery in another town where we bought last summer's bushes. Yellow roses are always in memory of my grandmother Sidney Martin, who had an old-fashioned yellow rose hedge out by the well on the farm. These flowers were tiny button roses that I no longer see anywhere. Years ago I traveled down to the old farm home hoping to get a start of the rose bush and found the person living there had lost that yellow rose to a harsh winter the year before.

Last night after coming home from helping to decorate for our church’s women’s banquet tomorrow night, I realized I should carry the pretty little rose bush over there first before I plant it at Woodsong. Then others can enjoy it. The first time I bought petunias for the flower box, I carted the box in the trunk for outside decoration for that same annual affair, which had a garden theme that year.

This year the theme is “Putting Your Best Foot Forward,” and our volunteer cook, Jo Barger, was there last night with her marvelous collection of Aunt Mae’s vintage dress heels to put on the tables along with candles and Aunt Mae’s and others’ jewelry strung out on the multi-colored pastel clothes. The tables looked beautiful when we left.