Gardening: A Workout That Is Worth It On My Journey To A New Me!

Every spring I anxiously look forward to all of the beautiful azalea bushes, bradford pear trees, cherry blossom trees, dogwood trees, red bud trees, hydrangea bushes, knock-out roses and other shrubs, but my real enjoyment comes from watching the plants that I hand selected and planted come back year after year.


We moved into our home over four years ago, and like most new homes the landscaping left a little to be desired. Which is to say the builder of the house spent all of the budget on the house and the inside decor and little or nothing for the outside lawn and landscaping.


We had a few traditional holly bushes some variegated yellow and green leaf bush, one crape Myrtle and a lot of pine straw. We moved into the house the second weekend of December so the outdoor beautification project would not begin until spring.


The first week of April I can remember planning out what I would do with this sparse landscape. I began by having someone dig up all of the shrubs and relocating them to other areas and to the side of my house. We purchased knock-out roses and we planted them on the front of our house in two different areas. Next we planted three azalea bushes that are considered "encore" azaleas because they bloom in the spring and fall. We planted three sky pencil shrubs but today only one has survived. The last bush we planted was a Nikko Blue Hydrangea, my absolute favorite. This flowering shrub will provide large blue flower "balls" of flowers all spring and summer. With the existing crape myrtle tree that the builder had planted before me moved in, the "big" stuff was done. Now on to the fun part.

I love almost all flowers but I believe the most "bang for your buck" comes from the perennial plant selection. These flowers, once planted come back year after year, and they usually increase in number, spread or multiple. We took a trip to Growers Outlet in Loganville to see what beautiful plants that they had to choose from. (This nursery is truly a "wholesale" nursery and it is open to the public. You will find no lower prices anywhere and you will never want to over-spend at Home Depot or Lowes again!)


We purchased, Calla Lilly, Yarrow, O'Stella Day Lily, Purple Salvia, White Salvia, Black-eyed Susan, Pink Cone Flower, Purple Cone Flower, six different Clematis Vines with different colors of flowers that bloom all summer. My son had recently purchased a house and did not want to take care of all the flowers ( Hostas in three different varieties, canna lilies, spider wort, and a few others). So I told him if he would dig them up from his back yard I would gladly give them a new home.


Every year I do a little bit more with my garden. This year I planted the following flowers; Indian Blanket, Shasta Daisy, Coreopsis, Pink Begonias, and I transplanted some of my large Elephant Ear plants and the "forever spreading" Lambs Ear. This is one of the most interesting flowers in my garden. It is silver in color and it is fuzzy and soft. small children especially like this plant because you can "pet" it.

Gardening, both of the flower variety and the vegetable gardening type is very hard work and could be considered a "work-out" with all the bending, stooping, digging, pulling (weeds) and planting. But there is no work-out more rewarding than to see the "fruit" of your labor. Here are just a few pictures of my work-out thus far this year. I dont know about you, but this is one work-out that I will gladly continue if it can bring me these types of results!