Found in the Garden

For those who read my last post, I’ll share an update. I found my gardening knife.

It was lying on the stone edge of one of the raised beds in the Vegetable Garden Cathedral. In plain sight. The replacement knife, with a sharpening stone, arrived the next day. So now I find I have a gardening knife, a back up gardening knife, plus a back up for the back up gardening knife.

I’ve found it useful at times to have multiples of the same tool.

Other things I’ve found in my garden include:

Pink Columbine

I’ve been looking around the garden for pink columbine to transplant to my new bed of pink flowers and could not believe how many blue, purple, and nearly white columbine I have throughout the garden. They are all seedlings of Aquilegia ‘Pink Tower’, ‘Blue Tower’ and ‘Dark Purple Barlow’. I was not exactly in despair looking for pink columbine but did think it odd that the minute I purposely looked for one, there were none to be found. Until I found two and then two more. One of them is pictured above. I’ll move it in the cooleth of the evening.

Packages Labeled ‘Live Plants’

This morning I found a lovely box of perennials from Darwin Perennials on my front porch. I do love finding any box labeled ‘Live Plants’ waiting by my front door. I quickly unpacked it and found nine lovely perennials to trial in my garden. Oh yes, two of them have dark pink flowers so I’ll find a spot for them in my pink flower garden. They are Dianthus ‘Mountain Frost™ Ruby Glitter’ and Phlox ‘Super Ka-Pow™ Fuchsia’. I’ll find out how they do and report back.

Rocks

I know some gardeners live where merely putting a shovel into the ground means they will find rocks. That does not happen in my garden, so when I dig and find interesting rocks, I set them aside to use somewhere else in the garden. I’ve found some rocks that are unusual, dare I say, possibly fossils? I will have to find out someday if they really are fossils. In the meantime, every dig is an opportunity to find something buried in the garden, even if it is just a bunch of earthworms.

Spider Webs

I’ve found spider webs in my garden plenty of times. If the web isn’t in my way, then I’ll leave it be. If it’s in my way, like the one a few summers ago that went across the front walk, I’ll remove. My sister, who was watering plants for me one summer week, was glad she found that web before she walked right through it. It was made by one of those big spiders who spins a web in the evening to capture a night time snack, and then eats the web by morning. Then she finds a place to hide all day.

Toads

Every once in a while, I’ll find a toad hopping around in my garden. I think of them as good luck and one sign of a good healthy balance in the garden. They eat mosquitoes and I leave them be. You can find other signs of a good balance of nature in your garden. Just look around. Are the birds signing, are the bees buzzing, are their dragonflies flying about? And butterflies? Lucky you to find all these in your garden!

Chipmunks, and Rabbits

I find chipmunks scurrying across the patio when I open the door and step out into the garden. Then I look around to find which pot they’ve been digging in. Sometimes I just find the pot they’ve been digging in, but don’t see them. I also find evidence of rabbits and raccoons. I’d rather not say what that evidence is but if you must know it is their scat. I also find evidence of the rabbits nibbling plants in the garden. After years of battling the rabbits, I find I’m much more philosophical about them and the damage they cause.

Extra Empty Pots

I don’t know how it is that I have so many empty plastic nursery containers and such an odd assortment of clay pots. But I find I do have quite a few, and that’s after I return some to the local greenhouse and recycle others. Yet, still I find them all over the place. Stacked in the garage, piled up in the corner of the patio, even hiding behind the compost pile. But of course, when I am looking for one to use, I can’t find what I’m looking for, so off I go to the garden center, where I find new pots to buy.

My Sanity

Now, I know some non-gardeners say we gardeners have lost our minds, especially when they find out what we do in our gardens and how much we spend on our gardens. I’ll argue that we gardeners find our minds—our sanity— in our gardens. Without gardening, we’d find ourselves lost. Thank God for gardens!