Cultivating Relationships (& Landscaping Gifts!)

In my opinion, one of the greatest things about having a house with a little bit of garden and landscape space is the amount of free gifts, usually in the form of flowers or shrubs, that family and friends generously give to you.

In some cases we've received housewarming or holiday or "whatever" presents that have required watering and/or planting. Other times, we've left our parents' houses with boxes or bags of beautiful grasses, flowers, hastas, you-name-its, etc. Sometimes, mutual favors have been exchanged - their gardens get thinned out a bit and we reap the benefit of a much needed lawn addition.

Now, I feel it's worth mentioning these items haven't always survived - what can I say, we don't have the greatest track record for having green thumbs! But sometimes they have thrived. We seem to have a healthy mix of sunny to shady areas around our spread and have always tried to match there areas up to the plants in order for success.

That being said, I wanted to capture this red flower, as seen above. Although I don't know the name of it, I do know that it was a gift from S's mother. Lou Ann and her husband, Doug, came over for a brief visit, the day after we got home from the hospital with Ellena, to quickly plant and water 3 of these, and of course see their granddaughter. They are located in our backyard, just to the right of the steps that curve around the back of the garage. They are a captivating shade of red and the flowers are tiny red stars. Red is S's favorite color and Lou Ann says that the star blooms reminder her of Sheri, who was her little star. We have been receiving lots of rain this season, especially in the last week, and so far these special gifts are doing great!

We have a few more gifts in the dirt right now and as soon as they "pop up", we will be sure to capture them in photographs for posting. Stay tuned...