Finding Free Flowers for your garden

Two summers ago while my sister was visiting we decided to dig up some Black Eyed Susans from across the road in an otherwise empty field. It is always hot in Missouri during the summer, but in August the humidity added to the heat makes being outdoors a real challenge. Also most educated people know the odds of transplanting anything in August and seeing it grow are somewhere between slim and none. We didn't let this bit of information get in our way. We waited until dusk to start the project.

We pushed our wheelbarrow full of bright yellow flowers across the road, down the long drive and arrived at the prepared destination in the large back yard all ready to plant and water. Excited about our new flower bed, the following morning we strolled out to check the progress, fully expecting to see tall stems holding up cheerful flower faces, only to find a single flower had survived the transplant. It was a sad moment in time. Just about as sad as when my sister and I both discovered we had also walked through poison ivy and had it everywhere. EVERYWHERE. There were doctor visits, prednisone prescriptions, and topical creams times two, and that's all we had to show for our efforts...along with a single standing, albeit pitiful looking, Black Eyed Susan.

August came and went, then fall and winter set in and sometime in April my husband hired a man with an earth moving machine to come grade the back yard. He even questioned me about the flower grave yard and I told him I didn't believe there was a chance of resurrection, so the man scooped up the soil and spread it around the yard.

In May my dear husband took his mother on a week's trip to visit her sister and I took a week off work to work some more on my perennial garden. It was during this week that no one was home to cut the grass and our entire back yard began to bloom in little yellow Black Eyed Susans. In one day I dug up and moved over 50 plants. This is the second season the flowers have come up in my garden...and they are still popping up in the yard!

Ecclesiastes 7:8 says, "The end of a matter is better than its beginning"