PLANTS

As many of you know, my mom is an official "Master Gardner" and although I don't know if I necessarily inherited her green thumb, I do love to garden. I am learning, and so love to spend time with her at the green houses picking out plants. There is so much to learn-- (I will try to post a picture this summer of my mom's beautiful gardens--they are gorgeous, and have made the front page of our paper!!)

These past few weeks the kids and I have joined mom on a few green house trips to local and not so local green houses. It has been a blast.

Dawson LOVES to help in the garden, and he really is a help, especially with watering (what boy doesn't like to water?!) On one in particular trip to the greenhouse he picked up a plant and said, "oh how cute, this one is pretty mom!" Now, let me fill you in a little, he was talking about a marigold and I have never like marigolds. Not sure why, but they are just not a plant I think is extremely eye catching. Well, I did the good mom thing and told him he could get it. Of course he picked out the actual gold one--I tried 4 times to convince him he should get a yellow one, but he was adamate on the gold. Then when we got to the register, I broke the top flower off. He looked crushed. I told him to go get another one and we could plant 2, one with a flower and one with one that would bloom soon. He happily pranced over and grabbed another flower--another gold one. He said that way "they would match." So, after his nap, he gladly dug the hole to plant his beautiful marigold. The good thing about marigolds--they stink so badly the deer don't eat them...so they say!!

PS--Thanks mom for your time and knowledge, and your inspiration in gardening!!

So after this was written---I came home from work one day and found the marigold pulled out of the ground, the flower bitten off, and then scattered around--YUP, THE DEER! They had attempted to eat it, decided it was gross and spit it out, then moved on to my violets and dianthus! URGH! I calmly put it back in the ground before Dawson saw the damage to his beloved "cute" plants!