My Garden is Overwhelmed

I discovered over the weekend that my life can be overwhelmed by stuff just like my garden. And when that happens I feel surrounded by weeds and helpless to change it.

Most of us gardeners, I think, derive a great deal of pleasure from weeding and tending their garden if only because we love the time spent alone with the outdoors. Some may think the payoff and joy is all in the admiration of the beautiful, weed-free garden when the work is done, and that is definitely a big part. But, for me, the time outside is the best part. The tending to details is restful and gradually I find I've created a sanctuary. Well my weekend was anything but restful. My home didn't feel like a sanctuary. It was totally overwhelmed by weeds in the form of laundry and broken desks and an unfinished sunroom.

My sunroom-to-be is the intended winter home of all the tropical and other non-hardy plants I have always over-wintered in my home. Given that winter is nearly half-way through and my sunny indoor garden is not yet built, there is one plant that couldn't fit in the house and that is suffering from a winter in my garage. My practical sense tells me my beautiful spider lilies will come back as soon as they are moved indoors or out into spring air when it arrives. But the creator in me is mourning the loss of the beauty I've enjoyed for several years. The bulbs were a gift from my sister-in-law in Mississippi. She leaves them in her garden over the winter and they come back every year. But having tried that and destroyed a few in my garden, I know they aren't hardy here in Missouri. The last two winters I've kept mine inside in a warm sunny place and they thrive, keeping their strap-like leaves all winter and producing these lovely flowers in July and August.

They look very sad now. Although I have kept them from freezing badly, I can tell they have suffered from the cold. There are very few green leaves left. I'm not sure how much they need the food their winter leaves provide, but it certainly seemed to have paid off last year as they bloomed profusely. With any luck my sunroom will be done before the last frost and their bulbs can get a jump-start before I set their pots outside. It's so difficult to see them looking so very dead. But maybe a winter's rest will actually do them good and this summer they will out-shine their previous performance :-) Can you tell I'm trying to reassure myself?

As for the broken desk and the laundry - they, of course, were tended to. I spent most of my Sunday dismantling my teenage son's old desk, shopping for a new desk, then assembling the new furniture and rearranging his room. Of course, the newly folded laundry has yet to make it into his well-positioned dresser. But somehow it eventually gets done and we all seem to get what we need to thrive.

And that includes mom writing in her blog - even if it is a day late :-)