It’s the time of year when I begin assaulting my viewers with photos of my garden. It’s all the pent-up eagerness that I can’t contain after months without blooms in my yard.
But…I don’t have everything planted yet so I’ve been restricted to the tulips and emerging perennial leaves. So where did all of this glorious color come from?
My kid.
The other day I asked him to join me in a quick jaunt to the garden center. He’s always been my partner in crime during these excursions. I remember when he was about two and I stuck him in a cart as I strolled through the annuals at Romence Gardens. I assumed he’d be happy enough just looking around at everything. Little did I know he’d want to plan the garden for me.
Much to my mom’s horror, I actually let him. He was very insistent about several of the plants. Varieties I may never have chosen if solo. But I thought, why not? And his choices turned out to be great additions to my flower beds and containers. So it’s become a bit of a ritual for us.
This time around the first plant that caught his eye was the stevia. So I added that to our mint, basil, lemon balm and rosemary. Then we started randomly adding things to the cart. At one point he asked if he could get in my bag and use my camera to take some photos. Of course, I said, and the two of us walked along, me examining tags and roots, him stooping and stretching to find just the right angle for the shot.
When I downloaded them, I have to say I was impressed. I use aperture-priority as my main setting most of the time rather than manual, which does slightly “automate” the photo-taking process as far as the shutter speed. But even if you have your camera on the auto setting, you will only take good photos if you have a good eye. I’ve known people who’ve spent hundreds on fancy cameras and their photos are just not good.
So I was certainly pleased to see how deliberate and careful he was with his shots. So here I regale you with some lovely selections from our garden-shopping adventure. The one below reminds me of this photo I took a few years back.
