National Garden Month!

April is National Garden Month! I love gardening. To me, it truly keeps me sane, calms when I'm stressed and I can never get enough of it. I'm not a great gardener - pretty good, but not and expert by any stretch. I learned my gardening skills from my mother:) It all started when I was younger, but trust me, it wasn't my choice to spend all that time pulling weeds. It was punishment for fighting with my brother or her solution to my saying "I'm bored" one too many times!

But from that, I'm happy to say that I learned a lot. I learned that weeds always come back, so unless I wanted to keep pulling them, my brother and I tried to fight less and we better not ever say we had nothing to do in the summer. My mother taught me that gardening should be a joy, not a chore - and not to take yourself too seriously. She taught me that a garden was more than flowers, it was an ever changing work in progress. If you planted something here and it came up over there, you could either accept it or move it, but don't expect it to stay there forever...maybe it was smarter than you and would grow better where it was!

My favorite advice was her theory on planting. When we moved into our home, I had a clean slate, a huge empty yard to plant in. Where would I put this, where would I plant that? Mom stood in front of my home and said, just put them in and let them grow. I can hear her say "just dig a hole and put it in the dirt". Easy enough. Then there is always the "dig it up and throw it over there" method. Trust me, it works!

It's just getting warm enough here in the northeast for my gardens to start coming alive. This year, that will take on a whole new meaning for me, as my mom passed away in March. She was my gardening inspiration. Most of the perennials in my gardens came all the way from her gardens in WV. The biggest emotional hurdle for me will be when my wysteria blooms. It was started from a seed from the wysteria at my parents home! It bloomed in 3 years when "statistically" wysteria takes at least 7 years to bloom.

We always talked about what was blooming, her plants always before mine. We'd share pictures of flowers and of course, our wysteria's. I'll miss those conversations dearly.

I guess it's fitting that April is Gardening Month - my mother's birthday is April 8th. The beginning of a month that takes us from the cold of winter to the beauty of spring.

Gardening is a 12 months a year hobby though! I created a set of calendars to help both novice and experienced gardeners stay on top of their gardening. Click here to see my entire "gardening" collection.

So, take some time to plant something; vegies, flowers, trees. Teach your kids the joy of gardening - and make them pull weeds every now and then, it builds character! Click here for Gardening with Kids tips.

If you just can't wait til your flowers bloom or want a garden of flowers all year long, order the Comfy Cozy "Magic Garden" glow in the dark Pillowcase. Order one for your mom or granma...trust me, she'll love it!

Happy National Garden Month!

Click on this link (http://www.quamada.com/months.html) to check out the complete list of "months".