Garden Buddies=Free Flowers!

Lysimachia punctata

I have five garden buddies and counting. The first, Sonia, gets a big shout out because last year, when I mentioned that I might want to start a garden, she enthusiastically volunteered to dig up her own plots and divide out a bunch of perennials for me to transplant. I left her house one early spring weekend in 2010 with two buckets filled with dug-up bulbs, roots, and baby shoots, including day lilies, oregano, forsythia, lamb's ears, and my favorite, lysimachia punctata, which produces a abundance of yellow flowers all summer. Funny story about the lysimachia—her mother-in-law actually dug these up when on vacation in England some years ago, and their life has now spread to at least three different families on the East Coast. Thanks Auntie Sugar! That's one of the best things about gardening—the sharing! But back to Sonia, without her, my garden may never have gotten off the ground.

Second, Edwin and Joan. They thinned their garden as well, and gave me two more buckets of day lilies and lamb's ears (have you noticed the day-lily-lamb's-ear trend in my recent posts) as well as my starter plot of daisies. All of these have thrived and spread, even despite a deer invasion last spring.

Third and fourth are my two neighbors (on two different sides), John and Paul. Paul's landscaping is to die for—he's my go-to expert on perennials of all kinds! If I have a question, he knows the answer. AND, every time he divides his plants, he brings me wheelbarrows full! He has single-handedly helped me fill giant spaces in my landscape with lilies, phlox, lilac, astilbe, and irises.

John, in addition to sharing plants, is my true garden buddy. My social garden buddy. My get dirty together garden buddy. My "here-I-went-to-the-nursery-and-found-this-pretty-plant-for-us-to-try" garden buddy. My moral support garden buddy. He's the one I can cry to when the deer eat my hostas or when yet another March snow storm kicks in and covers up my crocuses (yes, that happened today.) He's the one who understands my joy when I get my first rose of the season. He shares my passion and we are two peas in a pod.

And finally, there is my mom. She's my 1000-mile-away garden buddy, but every time I visit, I admire her garden (and her ability to grow all her annuals from seeds each year, which is something that I'm trying again, but so far hasn't worked out so well for me). And every time I visit, I dig up chucks of her plants to smuggle onto the plane. The Black-eyed Susans, echinacea, and sedum are not only beautiful new additions to my collection, but they are reminders of "home" and family.

More than half of my garden was obtained free of charge with the bonus of friendship, love, and support. Gardening shouldn't always be solitary, though it is nice to enjoy the peace and quiet of nature without a two-year-old hanging on your leg. Bum off your friends. Compliment your neighbors (and then go dig up their gardens under the shelter of night.) Wait. Wrong. Please ask them first! Any gardener worth the flowers they grow will be happy to share their petals with you.