Almost every mom has been handed a squashed clump of weeds that only a mother could love, let alone take the time to put in a vase and call a bouquet.
Eden has been gardening for several years and picking flowers since her (then) chunky legs could toddle out to the nearest blooms. From a very early age she was able to make a genuinely beautiful arrangement. She has an innate gift, that particular eye which can make all things lovely and pleasing. I have always given her free rein, since the very reason I garden is to assuage the flower loving girl I was once upon a time.
True story: when I was six our family drove down to Florida in a motor home. On the way to Disney World we stopped to visit one of my mother’s friends from college, Lou. Lou’s husband Chuck is an extraordinary gardener and was in charge of the landscaping for a college. He took us on a twilight tour of the grounds. As we walked, he gathered an enormous bouquet which he gave to me.
I have no memory of our later trip to Disney World but I will never forget the moment I understood that astonishingly beautiful bouquet was mine. “For me?”
Eden has been gathering lovely little bouquets for years and I want to start cataloging them here. The above is from several weeks ago: the last of the redbud blossoms, a late lilac and a bare twig.
