For the very first time in my entire life I am discovering the joys that a flowering garden in Spring can bring.

This is our first Spring in this house, when we moved in everything was really well established for the season. Also, at the time I was much more concerned by the color of the walls and arranging furniture than by worrying about what was growing in the garden. Yes it was green and yes it was pretty and I had no idea how I was going to keep this alive and make the previous owner proud.

We had been told by a few passing neighbors already, how much care and pride she put in her garden. So when they mentioned the fact that she was very careful using only organic products to protect and nourish her garden the only two thoughts that came to my mind were:

a- Do you need to do this? Doesn’t this part take care of itself? What are you meant to feed them? How are you meant to protect them?

b- Shit I have the whole neighborhood about to witness that I am the least green-fingered person, not to say the least interested in spending time in the garden.

I grew up in a bustling city center where the only green things I remember were a few plants that my mum was looking after.

There was a giant one (I have no idea what it was) and the Avocado Tree. The first one we had to give up for adoption when my parents got divorced. It was too big for any other place we ended up in. Imagine a 3m (about 10ft) ceiling high and it was touching it!

The second one, the avocado tree, my dad fought really hard to be made the sole custodian. After all he grew it and so he was ready to give up the TV for it. I still have visions of this avocado stone growing roots out of its bottom after what seemed like weeks of staring at it.

Anyway, last weekend we decided that it was time to tidy up our garden and oh my gosh so many little heads of god-knows-what were under the impressive amount of rotting leaves. C had put them there supposedly to protect the plants from the cold. I believe we had ran out of garden bags for collections, so he had to find them a job. As I removed all this and discovered all the tiny little baby plants trying to grow, I opened the portal to middle-agedhood. That moment when nothing feels better than spending a couple of hours (well maybe one) in the garden raking, cutting, cleaning.

I have suddenly became fascinated by the plants that we have, most of them I have no idea what they are by the way. But they are green and pretty and colorful! I do have to improve on the force of my raking and stop pulling what looks dead, most of the time it isn’t. I also shout a lot “C IS THIS WEED?!” But I am slowly learning. We did have to google what sprouting Peonies look like because it really doesn’t look like the finished product. I nearly cut them all dead thinking “OH MY WORD, SOME STRANGE PURPLE STUFF IS EATING MY PEONIES!!”.

Here is the purple stuff which now doesn’t look anywhere near as purple as it was a few days ago.

Yesterday I also realised that I have a Magnolia tree, one of my favorite tree ever. My mum has a very big one in her front garden and I really think nothing looks prettier than a flowering Magnolia.

The Daffodils are out and tall, next to some pretty little pink ones (?).

The Bleeding Heart is blooming too.

Ok so now I know you are impressed that I know what these are, right? This is where it stops.

For example what is this? Is it going to grow bigger? I actually think I quite like it.

And this? Is it going to flower?

My mum will be so proud. Later on after her divorce she moved back to her family home in the south of France and has great big garden. I can’t even tell you how often my sister and I ignored her plea for us to join her in there to look after it. “Nah Mum, that’s boring”. Oh how wrong were we!