or at least a small part of it.
My mother was recovering from surgery*, yet needed some gentle exercise, so we spent time walking through the small towns in Virginia near her home. The town where I found this house and garden is Hamilton, VA, a tiny place that has mostly missed the great western sprawl of the DC suburbs. It’s a old town, along a former rail line, once both a village serving the area farmers and a summer escape for urbanites from Washington DC’s heat and humidity. A lovely place, with large old shade trees for summer strolls, and this fantastically colorful and fun home garden.
Sometimes it seems we forget just how entertaining gardening can be. We worry about the pH of the soil, and whether or not we should fertilize or prune or aerate now, and whether those insects are serious enough a threat to haul something with a long name from the shed. In the midst of all that, we can forget that gardening is play.
I love this house and it’s welcoming garden. It has cheerful bright seats, gnomes and gazing globes and twisty vine arbors and weird ornaments on the porch. It has a brilliant yellow rocking chair that matches the hanging baskets and daylilies. Even the mailbox is decorated.
This looks like a garden made by someone who was just handed the 64 color box of crayolas**. And you know they are having FUN.
*Mom’s doing great now. Thanks.
**Yes, that did just show my age.