Rosebushes, fully installed! The final height should be 10-12 feet. They have coral-colored blossoms and a strong "spicy" scent.

Grace takes pictures!

Gracie took pictures on a walk through our neighborhood! It wasn't as dark as the photos might suggest, but the flash distored the lighting a bit. The Peter-with-metal-flowers pictures are us taking discarded garden decorations out of someone else's trash. :)

Various purple things!

The lilacs are finally blooming! Just a bit, and just the one bush. I need to research lilac care and loving, because this one has been neglected for a while. But it has started blooming, which is a Big Event for our garden. And the purple guys I put in over the weekend - I know, they have a name. But for the moment, they're the purple guys who are adding some color to the front of the house.

Our next book purchase, bar none: Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle," about eating locally. http://www.amazon.com/Animal-Vegetable-Miracle-Year-Food/dp/0060852550/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-9600151-1529545?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1177900578&sr=8-1 I love her novels, I love her essays on parenting and envioronmentalism (especially a lovely one about her daughter Lily's chickens) and this book looks so fun! The interview with her at salon.com is a good read in its own right, if only for this line: "Sometimes I see people at the gym bench-pressing until they turn purple, or running five miles in the rain after work, and I think to myself, 'Who could push themselves that hard? Not me!' And yet, walking to the garden with a hoe feels like a tryst with a lover. I adore working up a sweat on a sunny day among the sweet potatoes. I love having used every muscle I own, making food for my family. That process is deeply compelling, probably coded into our DNA."

our day of joy and optimism.

So today is for joy. It turns out - things are really growing. Things I thought for sure I would kill - things I thought I'd neglected or somehow managed badly - are still growing. The hostas I planted in the shade garden last fall? Actually thriving. The hydrangia that I was supposed to maybe cut back last fall but didn't? A mass of new, green growth in the midst of the dead branches. The black-eyed Susans that I bought for their late-summer color and hoped might make it? Are in full leaf and look to be growing well. Ground cover has spread, despite the fact that it might technically be a weed. The shrubs alongside the driveway are starting to bloom. It's enough to make my closet optimist step out boldly into the yard and start planting more stuff. Which we did, all morning. I must confess that I tend to want what I want when I want it (which, let's face it, does seem to be true of the human condition generally). (Mom and Dad: you're right, I admit it. Just this once, under these specific circumstances: I'm not especially patient.) But it turns out that the waiting is sometimes - often, even - actually worth it. New growth is joyful. Things surviving the winter feels like a small miracle and there are just days where a person needs a small miracle or two. So out of optimism I'm planting more shrubs, despite the warnings that it's the year for cicadas and they'll eat all my shrubs. I'm planting, and working in the garden, and getting my hands dirty, because it beats the alternative by a mile.

Plants Grace found beautiful.

Our trip to the nursery!

We have a love-love relationship with the nursery nearest our house. We love to buy plants, they love to see us coming to buy plants. I decided last year that plants could be budgeted as entertainment, because we don't go out much, or have extravagent expenses related to a fancy social calendar, but we do buy plants. Today we bought some rosemary, because Grace begged for it ("Mom, I love the smell so much!") and an eggplant, because who knows, we might get lucky with it, and some sage because I'm determined to expand my cooking to include more fresh herbs. We also got two more shrubs for the backyard and some of the purple stuff, the name of which escapes me at the moment (one more sad realization that I should have taken Latin somewhere along the way, because I'd be able to remember plant names). Grace practiced taking pictures of flowers, too.