I've Got a Green Thumb

I’ve got a green thumb and I guess it runs in my family. I remember when I was a baby I used to love sitting in this swing my grandfather built me in the backyard and my paternal grandmother used to tend to her roses. There were so many! I wish I could go to my mom’s house and find photos of me in the yard with my grandparents. They used to tell me that my grandmother would get up at 3 or 4 in the morning on the weekends because she would be so excited to pick her best roses and sell them at the Farmers Market. My maternal grandfather had that green thumb too. Seemed like everything that he threw onto the ground would grow! I remember picking tomatoes, eggplant, squash, and so many other vegetables from our garden. He grew the strawberry patch for me. To this day I still love strawberries. Buy them every single week. But more importantly I’m writing this blog because I love gardening. It’s one of my therapies. That and cooking and cleaning. My life right now is so not the domestic housewife thing but that’s exactly what I turn to for me to keep some balance in my crazy life. More on that later in the blog and back to my green thumb for now.

I thought that I would spend my Memorial Day weekend working all day in my garden but I’ve been ridiculed with horrid allergies and a cold. Amazing because I have never in my life been affected by allergies until this year! I did however manage to do some sprucing up. Raking up leaves that the neighbor’s gargantuan tree that hangs over my yard dumps onto all my hardwork. The damn thing chokes up my flowers and then the landscapers who work on my lawn use the leaf blowers to blow the leaves all back again into my flowers! Last week they also stole my gardening gloves. I’m just about almost done with basic stuff but I’m not really satisfied yet with my work because I want it to Flowers Gone Wild back there! Every year I change up the annuals in my planters. Bright Impatients always make it back every year and I’ve also put in some Chrysanthemums, Celosia, Begonias, Peonies and so many others. I’m also very excited about some of my new perennials. I just put in 2 new gorgeous “Pink Knockout” rose bushes and 1 very delicate red rose tree. Also hope my miniature rose plants start blooming up again. There was this one year where I had just gotten the garden tot where I loved it and then I had new roofing and vinyl siding put on the house and the careless idiots threw all the old roofing onto my roses! I was horrified! This year I’ve fallen slightly behind schedule since our weather has been so ho hum. I’ve got to trim back my Hydrangeas, my Yoshino Flowering Cherry Tree bloomed like no other year this year and my Azalea bushes are taller then me now! I’m so jealous of my mother’s yard in the California. She has all of these mature fruit trees and my aunt has a Banana Tree. Hahah. If I had the great weather and the room in my yard I most certainly would love to start a vegetable and fruit garden and plus plenty more room for Roses and Peonies and Jasmine galore! Jasmine is also know as “Sampaguita” in the Philippines and it’s also the national flower! In all of my years I never knew that until this year actually and what a special coincidence since I’m Chinese and Filipina. Also want to try to accent some parts of my yard with lilies this year.

Now if I could only feel good enough to get outside again. Been sneezing up a storm. I’m standing here looking out the window and it looks likes it’s going to rain. Ahh well good for my flowers. Now if only I could clean the grill then we’re really in business because I make the best marinades for all my meat! There’s no place like BBQs at my place. XOXO - Jasmine Mai