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Welcome to A Writer’s Garden where writers who are gardeners or just love gardens will be sharing their garden and flower stories, as well as a bit about their writing.

Today’s writer/gardener guest is H. Carpenter, who will be talking about the wonders and healing powers of gardens. Welcome!

The Wonders of Gardens

by H. Carpenter

 

Gardens are amazing places. They can be big, small, formal or informal. Have different sizes and shapes, and a variety of names that you’re probably familiar with like butterfly garden, water garden, xeriscape garden, Zen garden – the list is endless.

My garden is none of the above. It’s just a simple hodgepodge of plants, trees and shrubs. Over the years, working in this rambly garden has made me happy, sad and surprised.

Inage source H. Carpenter

Happy is azaleas hugging the fence line.

 

Inage source H. Carpenter

Poinsettias turning their flowery faces toward the sun.

 

A crepe myrtle donated by my mom. The snippet she gave me many years ago before she left for that perennial garden in the sky has become a hardy bush. It blooms every summer, and each bloom is like a visit from her.

 

                             Inage source H. Carpenter

Sad is the small dogwood struggling to survive amid a jumbled patch of weeds. It isn’t much of a tree. Just a few spindly leaves propped on a skinny trunk covered by a heavy vine. It really needs saving. But lately I haven’t been able to generate the energy to do the job.

Why? A different kind of sad.

In the past few years, my daughter became the biggest contributor of hodgepodge to the garden. Recent additions include a Shasta daisy, a firebush, and a jasmine that’s busy scenting the air.

Nearby sits a plumbago she brought over before she went to join her grandma in that heavenly garden. We finished the final chapter of our last story while heaping pine needles around the bottom of the bush. That story has never seen the light of day. And the plumbago has never produced a bud.

My heart’s been heavy since she left, and writing has fallen by the wayside. Even gardening has become a chore. In more ways than one, I am so lost without her.

Then this week the plumbago bloomed!  Only a few sky-blue flowers, yet seeing them made me smile.

Inage source H. Carpenter

Yes, gardens, formal, informal or hodgepodge, are amazing places. But as most gardeners know, and I have just rediscovered – the true wonders of gardens are the flowers.

They can soothe the weary, calm the angry, and without any fanfare, quietly mend a shattered heart.

About the Writer/Gardener:

 Once upon a time there was a mother/daughter author duo named Helen and Lorri, who wrote as HL Carpenter. The Carpenters worked from their studios in Carpenter Country, a magical place that, like their stories, was unreal but not untrue. Then one day Lorri left her studio to explore the land of What-if, and like others who have lost a loved one the magical place lost much of its magic. But thanks to family, plus an amazing group of wordsmiths named Authors Moving Forward (AMF), the magic is slowly returning.

You can find Helen at  WordPress: Facebook: Blogger