Back to School and More

It’s been twenty years since I sent a child off to school and more than ten since I went myself to teach. Still, when I see those orange buses at the beginning of a new academic year, I get that familiar feeling of excitement coupled with anxiety.

I bought the miniature toy school bus pictured above, thinking I’d use it in a seasonal flower arrangement. So far, though, it sits on my kitchen windowsill, reminding me of days gone by when I’d get my elementary school-aged girls up and out the door to catch the bus.

Going back even further, I’m reminded of my own school days. Unlike my daughters, who insisted on car-pooling once they reached middle school, I rode the bus until my senior year, when for some reason I don’t remember, my parents agreed to let me drive a family car to school as long as I took my siblings with me.

These days, I get nostalgic thinking about not only my grown-up daughters but also my grandchildren who seem to be racing through childhood. It’s hard for me to wrap my head around a nineteen-year-old granddaughter who’s at the same university I attended over fifty years ago.

Incidentally, the Greek clubs I belonged to were academic. No fun sorority for me.

I have had some fun this month, though. Recently, while the husbands were playing golf in a member-guest tournament in Greenville, the ladies went to a sip and paint event, one of those parties where you’re given a glass of wine, a paper plate filled with squirts of paint, an artist’s brush, and a small canvas.

I have very little artistic ability–hey, I know my weaknesses–but I was halfway proud of this pumpkin I painted. Full disclosure: the pumpkin was already outlined on the canvas and we ladies worked under the step-by-step instruction of an art teacher. Still, I felt I channeled my inner Van Gogh. Or maybe Bob Ross. Grandma Moses?

In fact, right now, I have my pumpkin painting displayed on my old upright piano. I’ll probably mix it in with some tacky Halloween decorations in another month or so and then after Thanksgiving, stick it in the attic with the fall decor until next year.

What’s Happening in the Garden

I can’t leave an August post without talking about what’s happening in the yard, or for the British, the garden.

Zinnias have been my most prolific crop this year. They’re so easy to grow: just toss out a Dollar Store package of seeds on slightly loosened soil, lightly cover with dirt, sprinkle with water, and then watch them sprout. Voila: you soon have cut flowers all summer for arrangements.

The butterflies love them, too.

Sedum is not a particularly exciting plant, but it’s hardy if kept away from the deer and blooms in mid-to-late summer. Other pluses: it’s a drought tolerant succulent and comes back each year. I’ve had a nice planter of sedum on my back porch (away from the deer) this year, and I’ve enjoyed looking at it out my kitchen window.

As excited as I’ve been about my zinnias this summer, I have one other flower I want to brag about: pentas. How did I not know about this plant until I saw some one-quart containers of it back in the spring at Lowe’s for only a dollar each.

I picked up a dozen or so in different colors–pink, lavender, red–and planted them around my yard. I put some in my pollinator bed in the side yard, some to form a short border of sorts in the backyard, and a couple in pots. Almost all have flourished. A bonus: the butterflies and bees love them.

It’s a flower I’ll buy again, if it doesn’t reseed itself.