I was encouraged once that as a mom make sure we get pictures with our kids. I know this is something I have to think about, I’m usually behind the camera because it’s something I enjoy and let’s be honest I’m most comfortable in this place. I realized a few years ago I had few pictures of me with my children. I continue to work on changing that trend. My teen daughters’ love of selfies is helping me with this goal. A bonus of writing this is I realized I have very few pictures of my son and I together over the past two years. Always learning and growing!
Another time I say TAKE THE PICTURE, is when you’re gardening. Take the before pictures, take the ones with weeds, take the picture in Spring when your garden feels empty. Then take the summer and fall picture it’s so encouraging to see the growth and changes in a garden from Spring to Summer to Fall and year to year!
Here are some before and after pictures of my gardens. You can see the growth where plants have filled in or been cleaned up. The first two pictures are of my berry garden. In the first picture the ground is covered is strawberry plants. They thrived, however, we always lost lots of strawberries to slug and the fact that we couldn’t reach most of the plants. I pulled everything out except the lavender, blueberry bushes, butterfly bush, and Nadina bush. Then I put weed fabric down to make the weeds less of an issue. They were woven within the strawberry plants, and it was just messy. Mark built me a raised bed for strawberries (that still needs a fence because my dog eats all berries off the bushes). I’ve added perennials that are good cut flowers and add color and created a trellis with old fencing for cucumber plants, and created removeable covers for the blueberry bushes so the deer don’t eat all the buds. When I feel like a garden is causing me more stress than joy, I figure out what needs to change. Now I get food production, cut flowers, beauty, and less weeding.
The second pair of pictures is from my back garden. It’s along our back fence and has so many vines growing. It’s a constant battle. But in the second picture taken this week you can see all the plants. I have 9 peonies, 3 penstemon, 3 sedum, daffodils, allium, Baptisia, dusty miller, butterfly weed, pampas grass, black-eyed susans and more I’m sure I’m forgetting. I’ve made this my garden that is almost all perennials and pretty self-sufficient in terms of watering because my hose doesn’t reach this far.
Have you taken pictures of your garden? If not taken them now and tag @SowWonder on social media. I love seeing your gardens!
