Hope and Promise

Whenever I think about my garden, I think of hope and promise. I plant seeds or transplants and hope that I am putting them in the right place, with the right light/water/space and all those other things I know they need. I hope they will thrive and multiply and produce flowers/fruit/seeds.

The promise I see is when the plants put on buds as a promise of blooms to come, or flowers as a promise of seeds to come. These of course are coveted as food for my birds in the fall and winter. There’s also that promise of the seed pods, assuring me that I will have more plants coming up next year. Just this year, I have found butterfly weed of three different varieties, Ironweed, Penstemon, Columbine, Redbud, Wild Cherry, and Mulberry growing in places where I know the birds must have dropped seeds. These offer me the promise that I will have plants to share with friends.

I can’t imagine my life without a garden. I go out everyday-rain or shine-to stroll and just see what new thing is appearing-a bud on the penstemon, seeds forming on the chokeberry, green berries on the cherry tree, catkins on the mulberry-and am awed by the wonder of nature.

And so, here are a few of my offerings of hope and promise, that you, too, might find some pleasure herein.

Buds with their promise of blooms -amsonia, baptisia, native wisteria, Heart’s a bustin’, Iris, native clematis, penstemon, Solomon’s Seal

And the blooms that promise seeds…. Native clematis, tiarella, geranium, Jack-in-the-pulpit, Native honeysuckle, native columbine, Phacelia, Viburnum, Heart’s a bustin’….

And finally, the seeds with their promise of food for the wildlife, and more plants for next year……Bloodroot, Redbud, Hawthorn, Celandine poppies, wild cherry , chokeberry, Phacelia, Trout lily….