Wonders, Worries & What-Nots: Pink Impatiens

Sometimes carrying on traditions almost seem like an obligation, but most times they feel like a privilege. This year, we decided not to do hanging baskets this summer. We are going to be gone a lot this summer, and baskets cannot take the negligence. We did get a few annuals for some pots that sit out where the rain can at least get them. I slipped out of the house, got my gardening gloves on and armed myself with a shovel. I immediately saw Jaely watching me out of the living room window, so i motioned for her to join me. Her face lit up. She ran to get her flip flops and showed up in her dress with a smile on her face.

Once she got outside, we got her little gardening kit and put her gloves on. We could only find one and she was okay with that because it was her left hand that we had. She picked up her shovel and was ready to help. She wanted to help get the "sol" out of the giant bag that was as tall as she was. She learned why we put a wood chip or rock over the hole in the bottom of the pot and why the pots even have holes in the first place. She learned how to make a little hole in the rich, black "sol" and how to tap the bottom to get the plant out of the plastic holder. She learned how to pat and gently push and how the smaller plants go in the front and how it is nice to have something to hang off the side. Jaely really wanted a little pot of pink impatiens that she could call her own, so she got one. I realized how causally i was able to throw around names of flowers like my mom did- "the Nicotania is taller so we are going to want to put that towards the back." That means Jaely, too will know names of flowers just by being in the garden with me. She will pick up on those names.

I remember doing these same things with my mom. In fact, I am stuck on pink impatiens because of my mother. Other colors are not even an option. She (and later, i) would fill her whole center garden with pink impatiens. They would surround her silver/pink peonies and roses as they filled the whole garden that wrapped around three trees. They filled in wonderfully as a perfect shady/sunny garden spot. I weeded with my mom, planted flowers, transplanted, divided, pruned, and watered with and for my mom.

So, you can understand my delight as my oldest daughter's enthusiasm to come and help her mom plant flowers overflowed from her body. I have traditions to pass down, like pink impatiens.