Gardening: My (second) Favorite Hobby 🎋

When I looked at this week’s newsletter prompt (psst. I totally cheat and use a content calendar to come up with ideas about what to write), I started laughing. Because my favorite hobby is reading. Of course. I wouldn’t have become an Author Assistant if I didn’t love reading. So here’s my challenge: tell you about my favorite non-reading hobby.  And it is? Truly something I never thought I would say. Yup. Gardening.

See, when I was a kid, my dad and I planted a vegetable garden in the back yard. And I regularly ate the produce thereof as soon as it turned ripe enough. And I loved gardening. Loved it!

But then I became a boring adult with a busy life. And I tried to keep house plants. Honestly, I tried. But they all died. Over and over again. Even the “kill-proof” varieties. So I resigned myself to not being a green thumb with gardening skills any more.

But then we moved out of the tiny house with a minuscule yard, no south facing windows, and mold in the walls. We moved into a large house with a gigantic yard, plenty of windows, and no mold! And suddenly, having pride in the house’s landscape became a thing again.

Now I wanted to see the flower bed along the front walk flourish. I wanted to have the back porch surrounded by fragrant shade. I wanted to be able to enjoy our outdoor spaces like we hadn’t in over a decade.

So I started gardening again.

I put a pond in the front bed, along with as many bulbs/rhizomes as I could get my hands on. I planted every variety of morning glory that I could find around the back porch.

I’ve got plans to put bee and butterfly attracting wild flowers along the south wall. And some of my favorite flowering bushes along the north wall. Oh, yes, I’ve got plans.

And you know what? Everything isn’t dying off. They’re all flourishing. I think it’s just houseplants that I can’t keep alive. 🤷‍♀️

You can see more of my garden pictures on my Non-Author-Business Instagram Profile.