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Title: My Garden Story!!! Summer Trials & Tribulations.
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Blog Entry: Height Of Summer ~ Wild flowers in bloom:   The garden had recovered nicely from its insect nightmares and all was growing quickly now under the hot summer sun. The vegetable part of the garden was producing a large crop. There was an abundant amount of Early Girl and Big Boy tomatoes growing big and succulent on their vine, even the smaller cherry tomatoes were fruitful this year. The peppers were growing large, as well and some even had a touch of red on their green skin. Sara and Garth were excited at the thought of the bountiful harvest they would have in a few weeks. They had already started picking beans, cucumber and lettuce. There were also still some peas and radishes to harvest. The garden had heard Sara and Garth talking about how tasty their home grown salad had been at dinner last night, and how they couldn’t wait to added in more fresh veggies and some herbs, too. The flowerbeds were also content and budding some beautiful blossoms, which the children loved to cut and present to their Mother. The different flowers had bloomed into a rainbow of colors and a bouquet cut from the garden looked beautiful as the children walked from the garden chatting about how their Mum would arrange the flowers and put them on the dinner table.   Sara was especially happy one morning when she noticed how quickly the wildflowers were growing. She was anxious to see what types of flowers they were. One afternoon, Sara walked out to the garden with a blanket and a large book in her hands. She spread the blanket out by the wildflowers and opened the book. The garden could see it had lots of pictures of flowers in it. After awhile, Sara pulled a small notebook and pencil out of her pant pocket. She started writing as she spoke out loud, “Well, we have quite a variety of flowers, there are corn flowers, black eyed Susan’s, baby’s breath and asters, pretty common wild flowers so I’m not surprised they are growing, and they will make a great addition to our flower bouquets. I also see some butterflyweed; they will love growing in the rock garden, and sweet William. Ah, we have quite a few edible ones, too, the most common being nasturtium and mint. I’ll have to move the mint to its own area before it takes over the rock garden, it is really a herb anyway, so I will put it in a pot near the other herbs by the house”, added Sara. She also added Queen Anne’s lace, primrose and Johnny-Jump ups to her edible list, although were not often thought of as edible. Then the garden heard Sara gasp, “We have a few poisonous wild flower, too! Let’s see there is larkspur, hounds tongue, bluebonnets (lupines) and foxglove. Hmm, foxglove makes a good heart medicine, yet it is dangerous to eat, how interesting! I will have to make sure no one eats these flowers.” Then Sara packed up her things and left the garden. Soon she returned and placed several of her metal tags near the plants that she had identified as poisonous. The garden assumed she had labeled then with warnings. “That will work for humans that read, but what about animals”, thought the garden, “they won’t know what is on the metal tags!” Of course, not many animals entered the garden now, the fox’s urine had done its job well, and most birds seemed to know instinctively which plants they could eat. “So, I guess it won’t be a big problem’, sighed the garden with relief.   Rain, yet more rain and what a storm:   The garden awoke in the early morning feeling miserable. It was raining, as it had everyday this week, and the garden was wet and soggy. The soil was turning to mud and the grass was beginning to feel like a saturated sponge waiting to be wrung out! And, to top it all of the heavy rain last night had left the leaves in the garden all muddy, and of course the garden had no love of mud on its leaves.   The garden could also tell that the roots of the flowers and vegetables were not happy. Some were beginning to get root rot, as the continual rain was not allowing the soil to dry out; making it difficult for the roots to absorb enough air. If the sun didn’t come out soon some of the plants would not survive, as root rot usually destroyed a plant. Sara had come out daily in between the rainstorms to check on the garden, but there was little she could do to help. However, she and Garth had been able to improve the drainage a little by making small channels in the soil to help the excesses water run off from the flowerbeds and into the small wooded area at the back of the garden. This had helped a bit, but the garden feared it would not be enough to save all the plants in danger of root rot. Sara had also tried to clean some of the mud off the plant leaves, but this was a tedious task, she finally had just decided to wait until the sun came out to dry the leaves, then she could just brush the mud away.   Later that day, the sun had almost poked itself through the dense cloud cover, but this had only made things worse, producing the most fierce thunderstorm the garden had know in all its years. The sky had become as dark as night, and the garden felt the serge of an electric current run through it as the first large lightening bolt hit it. The garden squirmed under the force of it and the subsequent thunder that followed. This was not a pleasant sensation at all; the garden felt itself wishing for Sara to come out and tend it, but knew she would not appear in a storm this intense. Then it hit, the biggest and loudest bolt of lightening to ever land in the garden, it was followed by a loud, anguished groan. “What was that?’ thought the garden, it was truly scared now! Suddenly, CRASH, and down fell the old oak tree, the very first tree planted in the garden. It landed right in the middle of the flowerbeds, the flowers it landed on squealed with the shock of the sudden weight being dropped on them. “Oh my, how terrible, my favorite tree is down and my lovely flowers are being squashed!” cried the garden. At that point, it also began to rain incredibly heavy; the rain stung the garden; it was hailstones coming down, pinging the air and landing hard and cold on the garden. The garden was now the most distraught it had ever felt. All the beauty was being destroyed, and the garden could not do anything but wait for help.   The garden eventually feel into a fitful sleep; to be woken by the sound of Sara and her whole family assessing the damage done to the garden by last night’s storm. Her father was talking about the tree, and how they would have to pay for someone to haul it away. “What a shame”, he had said, “after all these years to be felled by a thunderstorm.” “Yes”, replied Mother, “ it is very sad to see our lovely oak ripped out of the ground. It has been a part of this garden for so many years.”   The garden thought back to when the tree had been planted, so young, with a straight trunk and shiny, fresh leaves. It wondered what that owner would think about the violent end to his beautiful oak. He had lived in the house by the garden, tending it for many years, taking special care of the then young oak tree. He would often sit near, and eventually, as the tree grew, under it, reading and on occasion, sleeping there. The garden would hear the man (the garden never did catch his name) telling the tree how proud he was of it growing taller and stronger; how it would provide wonderful shade for years to come. When this man moved away, the garden heard him tell the tree how much he would miss its cool shade from the summer sun and watching the beauty of snow landing on its bare branches in the winter.   The garden’s reverie was broken by a loud mechanical buzzing sound and human voices shouting. The garden realized it was a chain saw; the humans must be removing the tree. The shouts heard above the noise of the saw, were instructions for safely moving the tree trunk being given by a tall man in a helmet standing near the fallen oak. Slowly, the garden could fell the weight of the tree being lifted off the flowerbed. “Oh, look at the mess it has made of our beautiful flowers”, Garth cried to Sara. Sara replied, “We will have some hard work ahead fixing up the poor flowerbed. However, it does look like many flowers survived, they are just squashed from the weight of the tree.” Indeed, the garden could feel some plants already stretching and trying to lift their flattened heads up, however, other flowers had been completely crushed and would have to be pulled up. The garden assumed new ones would be planted in their place.   It took a couple of weeks, but finally one day the garden heard Sara exclaim to Garth that the flowerbed was looking beautiful once again, and so it was. The flowers that had survived being crushed had bounced back nicely and new blooms were forming and starting to open up. Sara had managed to find some interesting new flowers to replace those that were ruined. She has planted some dahlias, verbena and moved some asters from the rock garden into the flowerbed. She had also put in some ornamental grasses. Sara had told Garth how lucky they were to find such pretty replacements so late into the summer season. The garden was just happy she did find them. It felt beautiful once again, although it missed the shade of the oak cooling the grass during hot summer afternoons, but at least the flowerbed was once again flourishing.     That afternoon, as the garden listened to the children talking, it found out a new tree would be planted in the place of the old oak next spring. Their father said he would buy the tree, and the children would tend it. They would be able to watch it grow from a young sapling into a tall sturdy tree, much as they were now growing from small children into grown ups. Sara and Garth had talked enthusiastically about this and how it would be exciting to watch the new oak grow; they were still sad about losing the old oak, but the thought of the new tree cheered them up.