La buena tierra - Parte 2

Today my husband and I spent several hours sprucing up our yard and the efforts definitely show. That's another thing I love about gardening (and one big difference between it and teaching), the fruits of your labor show immediately.

I weeded the other four flower beds and all around my near-bursting peonies and my sprouting amapola. My husband transplanted an unhappy miniature rose that wasn't getting enough sun and a daisy I just planted yesterday, which also was way too ensconced in the back of the front flower bed to do what daisies do best: lift their bright yellow centers toward the sun.

As an amateur gardener, I have made all the mistakes by the book, especially planting sun-needing perennials in shady areas and shade-loving plants in too much sun. I've paid the price (well, mostly the plants have paid it) but I'm slowly learning to study the areas of the yard that get the most sun and plant accordingly.

Last fall, we transplanted the peonies (which I had unwittingly first planted in shady areas) to the sunniest spot in the garden and this year it looks like I will reap the rewards since they are all ready to bloom. I often suffer from peony envy as I walk around my neighborhood and see the gorgeous peonies cascading off the plants of neighbors while mine, year after year, bloomed sparingly, if at all. I hope there's no more peony envy this year.

The dogs also got their first bath of the year, which doesn't make either one happy (Geni looked positively mortified) so they are both shiny and, at least for a few hours, smell like something better than a dirty dog.

And I got to wear my first sleeveless shirt of the year, after slathering on the Coppertone to work in the sunlit yard. All in all, it's been a great Sunday and while I have no human children of my own, there's two cats and two dogs and plenty of fledgling flowers to make me feel like Mother's Day might just apply to me, too.