On the way home from our recent trip up north, my husband and I were talking about how different “gardens” are for us up north.  He said something interesting – In the “city” we plant gardens to bring nature and beauty into our outdoor spaces.  We long for it.  Up north nature is already there, abundantly.

Every time we go up north new massive waves of flowers are blooming.  We’ve seen some of those waves for years.  The applicability of those experiences to what we are doing is now slowly dawning on me.  Yes, the different waves were technically “planted” over time, but they are naturally all over – in fields, in the ditches, in the woods.  I don’t need to create “garden” beauty up there.  It’s already there for me to enjoy.

This last time the tiger lilies were blooming.  I realized when we were on the way home I didn’t even take pictures.  Wow!  I was “in the moment”.  I just enjoyed their beauty, for long walks, and for miles and miles of driving.

Perspective is coming forward.  My tiny attempts to bring “garden” beauty to our land up north have quickly been overtaken by the massive natural beauty that is already there – a gigantic garden, planted over thousands of years, doing its thing naturally and with more beauty than I could ever put together.  My part as a gardener in that environment is to realize it and just enjoy it.

Now, if we ever move up there, we may want to grow some food, and that will take more work.  And at the homesite area we are slowly clearing we eventually want to have a clover “lawn”.  But that is a topic for another day.

Back at our townhome, I confirmed what I suspected – I missed the first ‘South Seas’ daylily blooms of the season.  But before we headed up north I caught our first ‘Purple D’ Oro’ daylily blooms, and when we came back we caught the first ‘Just Plum Happy’ daylily blooms

along with a couple ‘South Seas’ blooms.

Today I caught the first ‘Hush Little Baby’ bloom

and the first red daylily bloom (in the way back)

along with over a dozen ‘Purple D’ Oro blooms.

And after work, after our dog got his daily walk, I spent an hour putzing in the gardens – trimmming here, weeding there.  It’s all good.