The above picture is of my auxillary garden shed. It’s a two foot wide wooden church with an old glass doorknob (from our previous home) for a finial. It lives on the deck and it houses my clippers, trowels and hand weeder. That way I don’t have to walk all the way to the other side of the house for tools when I’m gardening on the deck. I was going to get an old mailbox and just plunk it in the rose bed but my friend saw the church and thought I needed it. My husband is sure it is going to be a haven for spiders, which is actually okay by me – the only concession I make is not to leave my garden gloves in it.
Now is the time I start thinking longingly of dahlias, ornamental kale, pansies and other fall flowering plants. My Summer pots are starting to look leggy and spent and I want to move away from the pinks, blues and pale yellows of Summer and start over with rich purples and reds and the silvery grey of dusty miller or lamb’s ear.
So far I’ve just seen pansies and violas in the nurseries. And it wasn’t until I got my little six-pack of violas home that I realized I was still in Summer mode as far as the colors go.
Violas always remind me of my husband’s grandmother, whose name was Viola. She spent the last year of her life living with my mother in law. A week after she passed away a viola popped up right in the middle of the driveway, in a crack in the pavement. Just her way of dropping in to say hello, I suppose.