Home

I spent yesterday afternoon helping a friend landscape the front yard of her new home. Out came mite infested azaleas and clumps of overgrown monkey grass. Hostas, ignorantly planted by the previous owner in full sun on a hot dry slope were moved to the moist shade in the back and replaced with a small herb garden and perennials to complement the existing shrubs. Her daughter eagerly dug through a bucket of worm compost searching for wigglers while we amended the soil and designed my friend's first garden. When the last bag of mulch was finally laid, we stood back, cold and covered in dirt, clapping and cheering.

Having moved seventeen times in thirty four years, I've never understood how deeply attached people become to their surroundings. While I loved many of the places I lived, they were always just pit stops and I focused my attachments on the people I met rather than the town or landscape. But if you were to ask me where I considered my true home to be, I would have drawn a blank. Home was where ever my husband, children, and dogs were, regardless of the state abbreviation at the end of our address. It wasn't a fixed location but rather a fluid course that was guaranteed to change.

I've lived in the same house in northern Virginia for nine years, longer than I've lived anywhere, and the idea of moving again brings nausea and the realization that I've become, for the first time, deeply attached to where I live. Home is no longer where ever I hang my hat but these walls and this garden. It's an odd feeling, as strange as it is comforting. I laid on the hammock in my back yard this afternoon doing nothing but dreaming and savored how good it was to be home.

'Johnson's Blue' cranesbill geraniums 

They grow in a moist spot near the dogwood.

Geraniums and Siberian iris

The dogwood garden in early evening. This bed is full of perennials and sweetspire 'Little Henry'.

Genie and the marguerites 

Thalictrum in bud

The flowers remind me of fireworks. 

They grow near the river birch and native Bowman's Root.

Chives have self seeded gently around my garden.

Peeking at a pot of seed grown curly parsley planted for the butterflies. 

It was too bright when I took this photo. Chives thrive in a well drained bed near white geraniums, 'Laura' phlox, and a Sceptre d'Isle rose, all grown in the shade of a massive Rose of Sharon.

'Miss Kim' lilac

These shrubs have only been in the garden a few years but bloom heavier every season. I'm hoping they'll be covered with blossoms by next spring. They grow between an American Cranberry bush (viburnum trilobum) and fragrant sweetbox (sarcocca).

I planted them near a window so I could enjoy their incredible fragrance even while inside. I think Lucy likes them, too.