I wish I had something that deserved the name of "garden!" I don't, really, but I do have a patch of ground in front of my house that I sometimes plant things in.

Last fall, Caitlin & Colin & I planted bulbs that Colin & I had picked out at the hardware store. We planted daffodils & tulips & hyacinths & crocus. Just a few weeks after we planted them, little shoots started to poke up through the ground. I figured they were going to get frozen and die for sure, since this was before the worst of the cold weather hit. Fortunately, it was a very mild winter, and though we had some hard frosts the flower shoots mostly survived.

When Spring came, things started blooming like crazy! First the crocus, yellow and purple and white with tiny purple stripes, then the hyacinths, then as the crocus were starting to die off the daffodils and finally the
tulips exploded (all the while the hardy hyacinths were still blooming and perfuming the air all around). The tulips were mostly a rather dark purple and a wonderful rich pink--beautiful, delicious colours. Then there were about a half a dozen that Colin had picked, not really knowing what they
were going to look like--they turned out to be quite tall, with huge bright red blossoms. The daffodils were standard yellow ones, national symbol of Wales and thus one of my favourite flowers.

The kids & I were so pleased. Even Jamie was proud of the flowers, and the day we planted he had spent inside on the computer! The crocus started blooming I think in February, and the last of the tulips didn't die off until after Easter, so we had weeks & weeks of flowers. I would stand in the front doorway on sunny days and just breathe in hyacinth scent, and I would take Alex out to see and smell the flowers. He seemed to enjoy them, too. Bumblebees and ladybugs also were regular visitors.

Now that area is waiting for me to decide what to do with it next. I have dug up some of the bulbs, and need to finish that, and give the plot a good
weeding. There is still something blooming there, though...

The centrepiece of the whole thing is a Red Clover bush. I have a special fondness for red clover. When we lived out in the country (actually a little rural village) red clover would grow wild on our land, though never in profusion. When we moved to town and were living with Alex's father (this before Alex came along) I discovered a red clover plant growing in our back yard one summer. I saved in from an evil fate at the blades of a lawn mower, transplanting it from the back yard to an area in front of the house where I was considering putting in flowers or maybe an herb garden. It didn't exactly thrive, but it did survive. When the kids and I moved out of that half of the duplex into the side where we are now, I eyed the overgrown patch of weeds in front of the new place and ripped out a big enough spot to plant my little clover and moved it over. It survived and the next summer finally put out a few flowers, to my great satisfaction. This year...well, I guess it didn't want to be outdone by all those new invaders we planted,
because come Spring, when all the others were blooming, this little Red Clover plant started to put on new growth and buds like crazy, and now I have a bonafide red clover bush in my front flower bed. I love it.