#Microblog Mondays: Helping Things Grow

I love summer, for so many reasons, but mostly because summer means gardening. And I love, love, love to garden. 

So many resources suggest gardening as a therapeutic tool, especially for infertility and loss. I have to say that it is something that I did before experiencing infertility, but there is a different kind of satisfaction in growing beautiful living things in the garden when your womb is completely incapable of growing anything living, as if someone has planted a big old walnut tree in there, acidifying the soil until absolutely nothing can grow. 

Looking at my garden, I know that I can create life. Or, not so much create it, since I didn't make the seeds and pollinate them myself... but I can nurture life. I can take a plant that might not flourish elsewhere, and give it a good, healthy, happy life in the soil that I amend and feed and tend with loving care. 

Hmmmm. 

I put pictures up of my garden this year on Facebook, in an album, and I update it every time the growing season reveals new treasures. I post as obsessively as I might if we had actual children. This comment from a friend made me simultaneously smile and cry: 

You have a beautiful way of helping things grow. You will be an amazing Mom. What a lucky child!!!

And so I share with you photos, as of July, of my lovely flower children that I've helped to grow so far: 

The right side of what is now mostly echinacea garden.
I leave the seedheads for the goldfinches in the fall,
Which means that they pretty much take over in the spring.
Also in there: dwarf hollyhock, zinnias, balloonflower
that's not quite blooming yet, and an urn of
pretty purple annuals.

A close up of the echinacea so you can see the three different colors.
Funny, these weren't the original colors in this section (just orange),
but the goldfinches had other ideas and spread the love from
other areas of the garden.

The bed from the side opposite the echinacea explosion.
Astilbe, blue butterfly delphinium, evil weedy violets

Close up of the blue butterfly delphinium.
I love this little piece of sky in my garden.

Completely indulgent further side view of this bed,
this time with the fluffy pink astilbe in the foreground.

My beautiful butterfly garden, from the side.
More of that pretty purple annual,
Milkweed, Senorita Rosalita cleome,
two types of sedum that apparently feed
the deer, stella d'oro daylilies that just fed
something, balloon flowers, bee balm,
blueberries, black-eyed susans getting ready
to bloom, and more echinacea.

Butterfly garden from the front. My little slice of picket fence.
Giant Joe Pye weed, all the plants from above, and
you can see the heliotrope, my favorite annual. 

Our cute (if I do say so myself) home. Bryce made those
shutters and stained them last year, his grandfather made
the bench but we painted it orange, and Bryce
made those window boxes that I filled with floral happiness.

A little shade in the back by the woods. Lots of hosta,
heuchera, Japanese painted ferns, Rose of Sharon, and astilbe.
I'm going to paint that chair a bright lilac this week.

Shade garden from the side. Might be blurry because the voracious
mosquitoes were attacking me. They are awful this year.

Want to read more #Microblog Mondays? Go here and enjoy!