Summer in Spokane

My husband and I are living in Spokane and when we moved back, he told me he wanted flowers again.  You see, when we moved here the last time; I planted flowers in the front yard.  A lot of them, in new flower beds.  My gardening motto is this: Dig a hole, stick something in it and watch it grow.  In our last Spokane place, every time he turned around, I was bringing home a load of clearance plants.  I'd open the back of the car and there would be a half dozen more.  So it was a big surprise to me when I said he wanted to fence the front yard and put in flowers.  He didn't want to do it until we had the fence but that was done 2 weeks ago and here I am, bringing home plants.

A close friend of mine, gave me about 15 bare root roses last summer.  They had been pulled out of an elder's yard because the house was going up for sale and she didn't want the roses to go with it.  I don't know why but I took the poor babies home, soaked them in water for 24 hours and stuck them in the ground.  All but 5 have shown signs of life.  There was a house down the street that a company was renovating and they said we could pull those roses out too.  We have quite a few free roses and a couple we purchased.  Not everything made it through the winter, but several did.  Consequently, we have a lot of roses to put out front.  Then there was a lot of lemon balm.  People like that plant, it is in the mint family and tends to choke out a lot, including; well, mint.  I ripped that all out and last year bought about 3 peonies.  I transplanted a few from North Idaho and come fall last year, I had twice as many as I had planted.  Lemon balm choked those out as well.  So my yard is full of volunteer peonies along with the ones I planted.

A friend of mine just gave me a car load of starts from her garden and one of these days, I will go back to North Idaho and be there long enough to raid my mother's garden.  When we moved in to this place, my best friend came to see our new home.  She beat me there and was talking to my new neighbor. "Just wait," she opened with, "You won't recognize the place in a year."  Lori was right, things have definitely changed.  All the evergreen shrubs are gone and I am planting flowers everywhere.  Lots of holes filled with plants trying to grow.  Not all of them will make it but this summer is fun.  Next spring will see me out there in my pj's, greeting the plants that are pushing up.  Year after that, I will be dividing things so come see me!  I'll fill the back of your car with any luck!