A memory book

Life is a rough biography. Memories smooth out the edges.

Terri Guillemets

Our garden is like a memory book of friends and family.  Grandma Grof's roses bloom on a trellis, year after year.  Succulent seedum....  dug from a dry, city garden of a friend, then  transplanted, grown, and divided..over and over... now fills the yard with it's Autumn joy splendor.  Daisies....several leggy blooms carried home in a paper bag, now wave across the garden, whispering 'summer's here...summer's here...." in white and yellow and green.  The volunteer Cosmos...surprising us annually, dug with a borrowed shovel on a roadside in Oregon, driven across country in an old paint bucket, watered daily at rest stops along the way....showing up in late July in brilliant oranges and yellows...a rainbow lesson in persistence and surprise!  But of all the memories that grow here, I'm a sucker for the white picket fence that shelters the phlox.  A heritage plant, faithful each year, it shows it's face in shades of purple and pink and white.  It fills the air with a scent that attracts butterflies and hummingbird moths  and little children that love to chaise them both!  An American dream itself...our  vintage white picket arose from the discards at a tree dump...sanded, painted and pounded into place by hands that made this house a home. A tradition established...a sight that celebrates summer...and heralds the arrival of fall.  This is a garden with very smooth edges!