My garden is a complete mess. It started out ok, but very shortly after getting things ready for transplanting outside in late May, my father became very ill and died within a week. I had to take a trip to New Mexico during the time that I would have been planting things, and upon my arrival home, my veggie plot had become OVERRUN by datura seedlings - which I can not get rid of for anything. I’ve been completely unmotivated to do anything in my garden, which is quite odd for me, as that is normally a place I go to escape an unsettled mind, but for whatever reason, I am completely overwhelmed and uninspired.

Recently, I’ve thought about making a little tribute area to my dad in my garden. That idea is helping me to be a bit more excited about tackling that crazy situation in my back yard. My dad wasn’t into plants at all, and so planting a special flower or veggie isn’t really what I want to do. Being a librarian, I found a book called “A garden of Love & Healing” by Marsha Olson (who is both a grief counselor and a garden designer) which has some nice ideas. Included in the book is a list from the “Victorian Language of Flowers” of flowers and what they have been known to symbolize. This helped me to decide that what I will do is create an area that has flowers/plants that represent certain traits or characteristics that my dad had. It will be both fun and sad, but I am looking forward to it. One problem I am having, though, is finding a flower that symbolizes stubbornness…