A few years ago someone introduced me to the art of Bonsai.  Wanting to give this gardening technique a try, I purchases several small bonsai plants.  It wasn't long before they were gone - dead - defunct!  I was deflated.  However, I had purchased several intro to bonsai type books at Half Price Books so I continued to study the matter.  And eventually I discovered that not all bonsai has to be small exotic plants; that one can create interesting plants simply by pruning and reshaping common household plants.  I have had much more luck - and much more fun - with this simplified and less precise method.  These are some plants I've been playing with this summer.

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Much Better than Farmville!

I admit I've been having my fun farming in Farmville.  It seems to satisfy a need to plow, plant and harvest; one that hasn't been satisfied since we moved out of our home and into a townhouse.  I've never been an avid gardener but I did enjoy putzing with my flower garden (which Jim built and my dad designed).  Planting and placing a pot of flowers is just not the same as really digging in the dirt.

But yesterday was different.   We were given the opportunity to really garden!  Dad officially turned over his two tiered flower garden (and his old antique trowel) to Jim and I to care for.  At age 90, Dad decided he was ready to simply enjoy the garden - not work it.   And so with great enthusiasm Jim and I dug in yesterday; first spending the morning roaming the garden centers for a mass of annuals and then spending the rest of the day planting, moving, weeding and watering.  It was the most fun I've had in ages.  Today will be round two (even though my body is protesting just a bit)!

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Who plants a seed....

Helping Grandpa - 1986

Who plants a seed beneath the sod,

and waits to see, believes in God.

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