Spring Time

I don't know the first thing about gardening. I joke that I grew up in the dessert playing with rocks and cacti and therefore don't know how to keep plants alive, but in some ways that is no joke. When I went to college Katy, my Minnesota Mommy, gave me a cactus for my dorm room to remind me of home and somehow I actually managed to kill a cactus. But just because I know nothing about plants and keeping them alive does not mean I don't love them, in fact I love flowers and dream of having a beautiful garden full of tulips, there is a reason I consider myself a Minnesota girl at heart. So with the new house I decided I would start with baby steps and put a few flower boxes on our front porch. This sounds easy, but for me it turned out to be a little stressful and I was really wishing I could have Linda and Katy there to walk me through it. I think I have decided that when I decide to do a full garden I will be flying them out.

First I had to find the perfect flower boxes and once I found them Marc had to make them fit on our balcony because they definitely were not made for our balcony, but I was not budging, I wanted them. And Marc the handy man and sweet man that he is eventually made them work for me. Then I had to pick flowers, which I know nothing about, I went to the garden center and after wandering around aimlessly for way too much time blindly grabbed some pretty colors hoping they were the "right kind" and I grabbed a random bag of potting soil as well (I have no idea why it is necessary to have five billion choices for potting soil). The easiest part was actually planting them and that was only because I had a small space to put them in, but I am sure I tripled the amount of time it would take any normal person to transfer flowers from the container to a flower box.

It's about a month later and I would like to report that my flowers are still alive! I am obsessive about watering them and every rainstorm or extremely hot (this is most days considering we live in Houston) day I fear that they will be ruined, but I love the results! Now I am looking forward to some day planting a real garden, but I am not joking about needing Linda and Katy by my side. I could spend days wandering the garden center if I didn't have some assistance ;)

Here are my precious flowers...