Gardening Brings Me Joy and Mamaw Tribby

 "Did I take time out to laugh, to love,

To see, to think, to pray?

These are the thoughts that cross my mind

At the closing of the day."  Mamaw Tribby 

quote from the book "A Garden's Grace" by Nancy Hutchins 

Gardening brings me such joy. I know many of you feel the same peace when you see your gardens. Also some of us love to see gardens our neighbors provide. 

 The above is from my patio fence and has volunteer nasturtiums.

 

 

 

My dad enjoyed nurturing his garden and lawn at our Wisconsin home. He especially liked pruning our forsythia and lilac bushes. Once in a while he pruned a bit too much but we always had yellow forsythia and lilac blooms every spring. We had a white lilac, a dark purple lilac and a light lilac flower lilac all next to each other. The white lilac was about 10 feet tall, almost a tree, I planted a lilac recommended for where I live in California but it doesn't produce blooms. This year it had one group of blooms! I have had this lilac for about 15 years and I am not giving up on it.

 

 

forsythia and other plants I can't grow

forsythia
Originally uploaded by drwhimsy

Grow forsythia

Actually, my forsythia bush is doing well, these past 10 years, but it produces no glorious golden flowers.
I think there is too much shade, or not enough cold temperature in the winter. I need to research this. It had blooms when I bought it. Do you have any suggestions on how to get my forsythia to bloom?
Other plants that I can't grow: lilacs won't give flowers, bleeding hearts and lily of the valley bloom once and quickly disappear.
These four plants and their flowers are all part of beautiful memories for me, from my mom's garden in Wisconsin.
But I could use help in getting them to give lovely traditional flowers here in California.
I did plant 10 Lily of the valley pips in January, in a pot, since I keep trying and hoping.