around the house, my love for plants

i love plants.

i didn't always like them and i actually hated to work outside in my earlier years.

it wasn't until after purchasing our second home and having children did i really enjoy yard work. there is something gratifying about digging in your own yard and creating something new. i also enjoy the peace and quiet that come with working with plants. peace and quiet is a treat when you are around people/kids all day.

they don't ask you any questions or demand anything from you. it's just you, them, and the dirt.

i am pretty much a sentimental at heart. i typically don't grow just anything...i grow things that have good memories attached to them. 

i love flowers and i grow lots of them around my house in all my favorite colors.

my favorite flower is the hydrangea and of course it doesn't grow well around here.

this is what my hydrangeas look like right now : (

so i grow things that look similar to them.

i grew up in the country picking blackberries that grew wild along our property line. we would take buckets of them to my grandmother and she would bake cobblers and jams with the fruit. because of that, i grow some in my backyard to remind me of that childhood memory and give my children a chance to experience it too, just on a much much smaller scale unfortunately. but i grow the thorn-less kind so we don't get hurt.

 
  

i also have great memories of honeysuckles growing up. i grow this bush near our gate. i love smelling them. it reminds me of summer.

we also have 2 fig trees. my grandparents introduced me to figs at a young age and i love them. i am also fascinated by their huge leaves. i believe it is a fun tree to have with young children. not to mention that figs are always so expensive at the store so it is nice to go out in our backyard and pull one from the tree and eat it right then and there.

baby figs

our largest trees are our peach trees. they seemed to have grown up over night. we are still trying to figure them out though. they give great shade and i love peaches. i am still working on getting the jam just right and hope to make many sweet treats with them this summer.

they have the prettiest pink flowers in the spring

the yellow bells in my backyard were a birthday gift from my dearest friend, the first year we moved in.
 i love seeing their bright flowers.
they are also low maintenance...just like my friend ;)

we have a very small herb garden that we pick from often and we usually grow tomatoes  and peppers as well. the kids have a small strawberry plant that produces each year. it also lives in the herb garden because it is so small, but some of my favorite plants are small.

i adore succulents.

as a family, we love finding things in nature that is shaped like a heart.

and finally...i love anything planted in this cracked flower pot because it was my memaw's. she sadly lost her fight with cancer last year. i miss her very much. she loved plants and could grow just about anything. i think having plants around my house reminds me of her.

 i have held on to this pot for a long time. the wind blew it off and cracked it once, but i am not ready to get rid of it. her memory is still attach to it.