Is The Journey The Destination?

I’m planting like crazy in my new gardens…a front perennial bed is just about finished, and more shrubs and trees go in every day.  I’m trying to get the big stuff in first: specimen trees, screening plants and many shrubs. A few of these new plants I’m buying large, but many I’m buying small. I want to be able to look at the photos and say “Oh! Look at how small that Cotinus was when I planted it!”  

I am not as limber a gardener as I was when I started my last garden 15 years ago. After speaking to a woman’s group this afternoon I came home and planted the following: 15 Campanula poscharskyana (Serbian Bellflower), 3 “Lee’s Purple” Rhododendrons and 17 Geranium cantabrigiense ‘Bikovo’. Then I potted up 15 Calamintha nepetoides that were just too shrimpy to put directly into the perennial border. I watered a few newly planted trees and after that I was pooped. But such a feeling of satisfaction!

As I worked in the garden the wind finally died down and I watched the birds coming back and forth to the feeder. I get the biggest kick out of the crows - I think the best garden ornaments are a few shiny, black American crows strutting through the plants and generally showing themselves off. 

The garden is far from finished. It will take several years to get all the areas planted. It is such a perfect process, however, whether I’m limber or not.