Spring Bud Tales: 

Southern Shade Gardening

The wind tugged straw-needled blossoms from upper Southern pine branches. Clouds seemed to play hide and seek with the sun casting longer shadows. I wanted to put on a sweater or at least offer one to the gal in shorts digging in our pine straw bed. She said she was just fine.

But the other sweet lady with a rake in hand declared: "You're cold because you aren't working."

She was right. I wasn't messing with earthworms, because the two gals were working for me! Not for pay, because the money for the work MBH paid directly to an exceptional ministry hosting a plant sale fundraiser May Day. Heart of Georgia DDM is the current name of the project building independent homes for special adults. These lovely two ladies, part of the ministry, were more than willing to stage and dig the garden for me.

Before they could do the big dig, MBH offered to amend the backyard bed. That he and Buddy did fervently with shovels, rakes, strong backs and 240 pounds of  Miracle Grow Gardening Soil. They raked away the pine straw and punched into the red clay. What a pleasure to find sand had been mixed with clay in two of the three beds. Dad and son shoveled, sweated, and turned the clay, chunking at root runners, tossing away chunky rocks and archaeological beverage cans and . . . a red balloon? That's what MBH determined.

So faithful of my beloved to spend a misty Saturday churning up the garden with Buddy. A thunder boomer stopped work for an hour. It was not a tandem day. Still they had side by side guy bonding in mismatched shirts, Dad in his straw hat and Bud in a forward-facing, baseball cap.

Three days later, like the wonder of Easter,  life came to a empty patch between the trees. I didn't need to be warm or get worms between my fingers as I watched others do what they love doing--what The Master Gardener nurtured them to do. Girls dug into the dirt canvas to reflect the beauty of eternity's creation. They "brush stroked" from a heavenly paint box of variegated hostas, purple irises, day lilies, sunny forsythia vine, dwarf heavenly bamboo, and Cherry Rose calibrachoas.
Of course, we know who was happy n' wet with the spigot and watering can. "Whistle while you work . . ."