BEAUTY AND PLEASURE HAVE THEIR PRICE

When we moved into our home some 15 plus years ago, there was this little tree planted by our front door in the middle of a flower bed.  I love trees and I had to look up in the 'tree dictionary' to find out what kind it was.  It turned out to be a Golden Rain Drop Tree.  Today, it is getting too big to be so close to the house...but trees are special to me.   I never could get flowers to grow in the flower bed under the tree....I tried every shade plant I could find and nothing ever did well.   So I had Ken build a little deck around the tree and put the wrought iron furniture we inherited from our Mother on the deck.

But we still have a mega challenge.  The Raindrop trees are beautiful all over the city at this time of the year.  They are round and topped with golden flowers. 

As lovely as our  Golden Rain Drop Tree is, it is so messy, so dirty.  Those lovely golden flowers it produces drop and drop and drop and drop. The wooden deck Ken built is a dirty mess and the iron furniture is a mess as well.  So one wonders, are dirty trees worth the mess?   They are for me.  I just keep sweeping the deck and it never looks like it has been swept.  We have lots of dirty trees.  The native pecan trees drop nuts for the squirrles to bury so that baby pecan trees pop up everywhere in the spring.  And baby golden raindrop seedlings have to been pulled out.

We also have a huge sycamore on the north front side of the house and I love it.  It drops a million fuzzy balls every year.  Ugly balls to contrast the beautiful giant-sized sycamore leaves to offer us shade from the hot Oklahoma sun.

So today is June 12 and here is our front flower bed before the official first day of summer has arrived.  The coneflowers are doing well and finally pink.  In the top right picture on the lower left corner, you can see the Mexican Petunias coming along.  They don't come back in the right places but I cherrish them anyway.  It reminds me of parents and their children, children don't always do what you wanted or ordered, but you love those kids no matter.  And the job of teaching structure and control to your children is challenging but well worth the investment....  So is the garden.

Ken is enjoying the yard this year in a very different way.  He is not able to do the yard work he so loves to do.   Yet he loves the beauty and  is accepting that others can do the work and life is beautiful even when others do it in a different way. 

We  have our dirty trees and we love them.   And we accept that our beloved and much appreciated perennials return in unusual places.    With much gratitude we enjoy the elephant ears which survived a very cold winter without having to dig them up last fall.    Thank you  GOD for giving us gardens to enjoy, and thank you for the lesson in life that we learn from your creation.