Sunday Scenes - Rainy Day Garden Walk

#GardenWalk on Connect*Share*Grow!

It's that time again!  #GardenWalk Thursday on Twitter.  I featured a photo of an awesome Hosta in this week's post on Connect*Share*Grow!  To view, click here.

Southern Lit Lovers Happenings Newsletter - May 2013

Greetings fellow Southern Lit Lovers:

First off I'd like to welcome all of our new members!  Please drop by the "Come Sit For A Spell & Tell Us About Yourself" thread and say hello here.  No worries, we're a great bunch of folks who don't bite!

Our May group read of Julie Kibler's Calling Me Home is under way!  Join us here.

To get ahead of the game, I've posted the thread for June group reads noms.  Please read my initial comment in the thread before you post your nom (I've added a new guideline).  Click here.

All past group reads are now archived in the Archived Group Reads folder here. Feel free to comment on any of the past group reads if you're reading one now!

Are you on Twitter?  Well so is Southern Lit Lovers! Follow group happenings and other postings about Southern Lit & reading in general here.

We've got lots to chat about in the following sections:
Classic & Gothic Southern Lit
Genres Within The Genre
Set In The South, but...
Buddy Reads & Favorite Authors

What are you currently reading, just finished our bought recently? Southern and other genres, share those titles with us here.

Share your day to day, your time in the garden or talk about your other hobbies - we have a section for that too! Go here to connect with fellow SLL members.

I can't wait to see y'all over at the group!  We have a lot to chat about :-)

~Jo
Moderator, Southern Lit Lovers

A Wordless Wednesday Garden Walk

How does your garden grow so far this May?

The Beginning Of A Beautiful Relationship on Through My Eyes 360

Testing out my new Polaroid camera and doing some comparison shots with my old Nikon.! To view my photo experiments and to hear how I happened upon my new camera for an incredible bargain price, click here!

#GardenWalk on Connect*Share*Grow!

For my latest edition of #GardenWalk on Connect*Share*Grow, "Why #GardenWalk?" click here.

A Writers Journal - Grow Write Guild!

The inspiring Gayla Trail, aka You Grow Girl, created the Grow Write Guild, a "Creative Writing Club for People Who Love to Garden," in March and I discovered it last week via twitter gardening friend Louise's post "My Dream Garden?"  Every couple of weeks, Gayla posts a new prompt on her site.  I've been catching up since last week, first reading all of her posts related to GWG and then writing on prompts one and two.  

Just before discovering the GWG, I shared my recent struggles with my writing here. Since that post, I've been feeling positive and revitalized. And these GWG prompts? Such fun and perfect timing!  I thanked Gayla on twitter for doing this, telling her that.  

So let's get started!  

Prompt #1: My First Plant (Write about your first plant).

I wrote briefly about my first plants, two containers of bright yellow Pansies, in my first column for #gardenchat in "Getting To Know You." 

"...which all started one April with two containers of large, cheery yellow pansies from the local supermarket that apparently wanted nothing more than to grow & prosper on my old front stoop. I had no idea tending to those little flowers would bring such joy & comfort and quickly lead to my full immersion into (and often obsession with) the world of gardening."  "Those 'simple' pansies lead me to dip my toe into the pool of container gardening." (I'm still not entirely sure what that actually means!)

I'm not entirely sure how old I was when I brought those first pansies home.  Unfortunately I have memory issues due to my health and my journals from prior to 2004 disappeared during a messy breakup.  I was either 23 or 25.  I vaguely remember that moment of seeing them when mom and I walked up to the entrance of the supermarket and loving them as soon as I saw them, a first for me, as I'm not sure I ever really took notice of the flowers outside the supermarket prior to that.  They were 'buttercup' yellow, one of my favorite colors when I was in my late teens and 20's, with deep, velvety purple faces.  The only thing I knew about them was that they were pansies (my mother had long loved purple pansies) and I knew I had to have them.  I grew them in pots on the stairs of the porch for my apartment, first in the ones they came in and eventually re-potting them twice into larger sized containers!  I loved tending to those flowers and did so well into that Summer.  They're long gone now, but they live on in my heart (and memory thankfully).  

Prompt #2: Dream Garden (Describe your fantasy garden).

I had a lot of fun with this prompt!  I really let myself dream with this one which I don't normally do!

First off, my dream/fantasy garden would be mine and only "portable" if I wanted any of it to be, not because I don't own the land on which I garden.  (Because I/we don't own our home or the land on which I garden now and the older I get, the more that pains me something terrible).  

The differences between fantasy and dream blur throughout my writing on this one aside from this starting point. While I'm not sure if I would want my dream/fantasy garden to be free of weeds, I would like it to be no more than my uncooperative body can handle and I would want it free of voles, moles, squirrels and non-beneficial insects.  Deadheading is very calming & therapeutic for me, so there would be plenty of blooms and roses that require it!  I would have hardy, fairly unfussy things much like I have now in my garden because even they can be persnickety at times and who needs persnickety plants all the time?!  I would grow every single rose I've ever wanted to try and not only would I have a Clematis garden, but finally I would have my "shades of pink" garden, like The White Garden at Sissinghurst.  I would have bee and butterfly gardens to attract even more of them and I would have bird feeders (including suet & hummingbird) throughout.  I would have the trees that make my heart sing each Spring and Autumn, especially dogwoods, weeping cherries and Japanese maples.

One of the sheds would be made to look like Doctor Who's TARDIS, another would be made to look like an old country outhouse with a half moon on the door and I would have a small climate controlled greenhouse so I could grow some things year round regardless of the weather conditions.  There would be comfy spots to sit (or lie down when I'm not well) that follow the sun and the shade depending on the time of day and time of year.  (I follow the sun when it's cool and the shade when it's hot). Oh and places for the kitties to lounge in the sun with grass to eat.      

And, if I indeed could do "ANYTHING," I would have an English rose garden and an English country/cottage garden in England! And I would have fields of lavender and sunflowers in Provence, France!

But, as I said at the beginning of this prompt, my dream/fantasy garden would be mine. Ours. Just that would make it a dream come true! 

In My Garden Today on Through My Eyes 360!

For two of my latest additions of pink to the garden, visit Through My Eyes 360 by clicking here.