"Paper Gardener"

I've been pouring over gardening plans and herb types . . . all from the colonial era!  Our Brownie troop is doing some gardening for the local historic house where I work.  And we're putting in a colonial herb garden.  I don't know what put the idea in my head; I'm not much of a gardener.  Hence Mama's new moniker for me--"paper gardener"--because I've been really good at reading about colonial gardens.

So far, I have lavender, sage, rosemary, thyme, winter savory, and the piece de resistance costmary, an honest-to-goodness unusual colonial herb with its own moniker, "Bible Leaf."  Apparently, people used to use the leaves as bookmarks because they repel bugs, like bay leaves repel weevils in my cupboard.  I received a clump of the herb when I visited another local historic house and the gardener had some to spare. Very exciting.

I'd love to get some other less common plants, like valerian, feverfew, chamomile, angelica, yarrow, lovage, marjoram, lemon balm.  I might be able to find the chamomile and marjoram.

There's always next year.  The troop has agreed to keep up with the garden, doing more planting and upkeep.  Which means I'll have plenty of chances to do more than garden on paper.

Our Happy Mothers' Day

We don't get all jazzed up about Mother's Day here.  A meal, usually the day or week ahead.  Cards made at school.  No presents from the spouse.  Phone calls to grandmothers.  Actually, it's just the way we like it.  Lazy.

In the last few years, Mother's Day has also involved gardening.  There is a plant sale at the kiddos' elementary school to coincide with Mother's Day and the kids always bring home several various seedlings.  And one of their preschool teachers always sells seedlings around this time, so we go to her sale, too.  Plus, Sis got seeds for Christmas that she has been itching to plant since December!

Which means that this year, on the first dry and sunny day in awhile, we were outside planting.  Well, I hobbled around watching--my foot is healing but the skin is tight and the blisters tender, which makes walking and standing painful--while Sis did most of the work.  She potted the petunias and sunflower she got and put the marigolds and verbena she chose in the ground, as well as the lupines I'd gotten.  She then buried the peony bulbs I'd gotten for her at the box store.  Afterwards, she scattered her Christmas stocking wildflower seeds all over the area by the rock wall.  Finally, she planted the little cauliflower plant that she had wanted from the preschool teacher's sale in our back bed, where we were delighted to find that our horseradish and rhubarb from Miss Mary seem to have survived.  Bud, taking a break from practicing his sword and staff forms, eventually planted his six little petunia seedlings.  And helped me pot some Costmary that I had received from a gardener at another historic house for our new colonial-inspired garden that my Brownie troop is building for the historic house.  It's also called Bible Leaf because people would use the leaves as bookmarks to repel bugs, like we use bay leaves now to repel weevils in our pantry.

After planting, we had a Vietnamese take-out lunch and watched the first act of Fiddler on the Roof (up to the attack at the wedding party.)  All in all, a lovely day, which will lead to more loveliness as the plants take root and blossom.

I hope you moms and mothering ones had the kind of day you like to have, too.