Sweet Betsy and cape jasmine.

Fain and I walked to our house from church today. The current owners were not home, and so we gave ourselves permission to peruse the backyard. Our neighbor from across the street, a knowledgeable gardener, joined us and told us the names of many of our plants.

The far back yard is overgrown and wild, shaded by tall pines, wax myrtles, and dogwoods. Yellow jonquils are in bloom, and the green flags of irises wave in the breeze. The crisp, silver pods of money trees rustle and shake behind azaleas and tall, dark bushes covered with red berries. There is a tulip tree and several japonica shrubs in full, scarlet bloom. I’ll have to cut out a few free-loading oaks that have tried to take over, and I’ll have to pull out fallen branches and suspicious undergrowth. I look forward to the job. Sunshine, the smell of sweet Betsy and honeysuckle, dirt. What could be better?

Lantana grows in whips around the sides of the house, along with cape jasmine and camellia bushes. We even have a red Japanese maple waiting for us.

Fain enjoyed running and falling in the wide swath of dry lawn. I eyed the flower beds at the front of the house, empty, waiting for me to fill it with lavender and rosemary and butterfly bushes and blue mist. I’ll pack it with catnip and redleaf and pinks and indigo. I’ll never go on vacation again. My yard will be the most exotic escape ever forged by two bare hands…four when Fain is a little older.

The original owner of the house lived there until she died, in her eighties. The neighbor used to bring her tomatoes from his own garden. He said that she loved her yard. She walked over it with a pad in her hand. She wrote constantly about new growths, old friends, buzzing pests, perhaps. I laughed because I had already envisioned myself doing the same thing.

She told the neighbor once that her husband had picked a sweet Betsy bud each morning before he went to work, crushed it, and put it in his pocket. I’ll have to try that.