Eureka

As stated in the previous post, I has such plans to get to the garden center this weekend....dammit !

Nee Nee and I had been discussing planting etc and I remembered that she had bought some stuff from QVC. She's quite pleased with the condition, shipping etc and while we were talking I got an e mail update from Spring Hill Nurseries.

As I opened it . I glanced at the photos and there they were.

Shasta Daisy's.

They evoke such a complete memory for me it's both sweet and more than a bit bizarre...even for me.

I can remember accurately almost every damn inch of the house and the yard on Mt. La Plata Drive in Clairmont , California.

I can remember every inch of my fathers landscaping,

We lived at the open end of the cul de sac...in other words when you turned right onto Mt. La Plata off the main drag...and went straight.....at the last corner , you either turned right or left. If you kept on going straight , you were coming over for dinner because you were damn sure to end up in our driveway....literally.

As you pulled into the driveway..the garage was on the left.

Hibiscus were planted along the side facing the street of the garage.

My parents bedroom was in the front of the house facing the street and Daddy had built a trellis in the corner of their window so that they could have night blooming jasmine growing up on it.

Even my youngest brother has vivid memories of the early mornings when the windows would be open in Mom and Daddy's room. the whole house was filled with the scent of jasmine.

On the other side of the front door was the kitchen window where Mom had planter boxes with red geraniums. Below on either side of the door were flower beds with a variety of annuals.

On the far side of the driveway, opposite the garage was the weeping willow that we all just loved to death. We'd cry every year when Daddy would prune it convinced that he had killed it only to have it magically heal just in time for the sprinklers to be turned on so we could yelp like banshee's under the cascading water.

Daddy had built the back patio and cover where he had then built the bar that we had up until 1976 ...with a solid brass rail and dolphin insignia.

It weighed a ton.

Under the patio cover , there were always hanging fuchsia's and gardenia's in the hand built redwood planter boxes that moved about as needed on their casters.

Along the back chain link fence were all the roses but most of all , I remember the Shasta Daisy's.

From the small side kitchen door there was a corner area where Daddy had built a round clay patio , edged all the way in brick. After he built the patio table and got benches, he's sit there and read the paper in the mornings when he was home with his cup of tea. All along the inside of the fence on that side of the house were Shasta daisy's with an occasional palm.

As much as I can remember the interior of that house , and I really can ( honey...it's the same size as the one we are in now BTW) ...it's the garden I remember him creating .

We have an area around the mail box where the Mexican Heather and Ixoria ( sp) died.

I'm planting Shasta Daisy's.

Ciao,

Aunty Pol