The Border Girl

My husband calls me the Border Girl cuz our caboose is parked in such a manner that we have bits and pieces of land around us where I can garden with bits and pieces of vegetation. I have nearly completed a three or four foot wide and twenty feet long border up against a fence that's full of foxglove, winding rosemary, not the stout roman soldier kind, three ever-bearing raspberries, iris, jonquils, a wall flower I have to watch everyday lest it take over completely all mixed up with four columbines, three feverfew for migraines, a myriad of wormwood, poppies of a pale lemonade hue, strawberries that are bearing right up to Christmas with little grape hyacinths tucked inside the leaves. There's a nice healthy clump of marjoram that blends into a lemon-lime moss, two unknown beautiful somethings and tomorrow my neighbor is bringing me over a section of his tuber rose which I took care of when no one lived in his house.

The house next door was lived in for years by a woman who raised a buncha of children and a yard of crazy flowers which is where the tuber rose is coming from. She died a number of years ago and the kids all grown and speed freaks, who sold the place and none of them could see a flower growing, until Marc. I pray Marc stays forever. He is a fine gourmet chef and loves to garden. He's the one I explained to what a tuber rose is, so he wouldn't cut down those woody stalks and sticks, cuz come spring, it's gonna be a beauty of scent and rich flowers. I can't wait to plant this little bit he's giving me. Mimi Farina was right when she sang of Bread and Roses. We do need to have both in our life. Marc, in a way, is a male version of myself. I call him my brother. His house is full of collages, some movable, some glued. He never happier than when he has dirt under his fingernails or food in the middle of a recipe. Before he moved in and his house was empty, I gardened the borders of his house, taking a bit of this, a piece of that in payment for my work.
I had too many daffodil bulbs, so I planted some of them in his eastern border and they are blooming now.

I have to tackle my eastern border, but it's a bit daunting. The Jerusalem artichokes have taken over and every time that happens, so come the potato bugs which I really hate......