This post, 2018 MAY – DivaAnnie’s Garden Day, was written by
Glinda/Annie in Austin for the Divas of the Dirt Blog.
The rotating schedule told us that DivaAnnie’s turn to be
hostess would happen in May, the month of her birthday. Annie really wanted to
host the meeting but she was having serious health issues. We knew that Annie
was having trouble with gardening maintenance and we wanted to do it for her.
She was having trouble with other things too, and many of her friends and
neighbors helped with what they could. They took her to stores, helped her get
supplies for the garden, drove her to buy groceries, took Annie to doctor
appointments and her pets to the veterinarian and helped with mowing.
A few days before the meeting I took a Before Photo of the
fence corner in front – hoping there would be a good After Photo. On the day
before the meeting some rain fell on the garden, softening the ground and
plumping up the plants.
Annie, Buffy, Karla, Mindy, Mattie and Sophia were already
there when I arrived, enjoying coffee with muffins and fruit salad. And ooh,
what’s this? A beautiful orchid decorated the table of the birthday girl.
After a while we all went outside and got out the tools. In
that front Before corner a seven foot tall Barbados cherry had not done well
over the winter – the whole top had died off, but new growth was appearing at
the bottom. The Salvia guaranitica was running rampant, covering other plants
that Annie liked. In the square bed the top of her magnificent Duranta was all
dead sticks. We could fix all of that.
We could weed and clip back all the beds and borders, rescue
plants that were being smothered and dig out the oh-so-many tree seedlings that
had popped up everywhere. We were going to need a lot of yard bags!
The ‘Marilyn’ abutilon was so beautiful one could almost
ignore the weeds in the bed.
You’ve seen Annie’s Abutilon ‘Patrick’ in previous
posts…let’s take a closer look at her ‘Marilyn’
The day was quite warm, the ants were out and there was a
lot to do. Everyone worked together, trying to make a difference in each part
of the front yard while trying to keep an eye on Annie, who was working too
hard in the hot sun.
Sweet mascot Barbie stayed in the dappled shade and kept us
company.
Eventually the shady end of the front sidewalk looked
respectable again
The square garden on the far side of the driveway was no
longer a tangle of overgrown plants and saplings.
We couldn’t make the St. Augustine lawn look better, but we
could get rid of the weeds in the center bed and clip things back so the
Phlomis/Jerusalem Sage, columbines, salvias and other plants had some space.
Maybe some mulch could discourage new weeds.
Annie called us in to lunch – really good broccoli salad, a
fruit salad of strawberries and pineapple chunks, rotisserie chicken salad on
croissants with leaves of romaine to add crunch. We had so much to talk about
as we ate – well, we always have so much to talk about!
Annie had requested a lemon cake for her birthday. There
were no candles on top, but she liked this old-fashioned 1-2-3-4 lemon cake
with cream cheese frosting, made even better with a little ice cream plopped on
top.
We puttered around a little more outside and added plants to
her porch containers. We wanted to stay and keep working in the garden but
Annie said what she wanted was for us to go home, and then she wanted to go to
bed.
Before we left I snapped a photo of the now-pretty Barbados
cherry-Salvia guaranitica bed so there’d be an After picture to go with the
Before picture.
****************INTERVAL*************** 
I’m writing about this day a whole year after that meeting,
and it’s been an odd and difficult post to write. Back then we were worried
about Annie’s health and hoped that modern medicine could make her better, but
we couldn’t know the future.
We didn’t know that this would be the last time she had a
garden day, the last time we would all be together at her house, that this was
her last birthday cake in this the last spring of her life.
All that I can do now is tell you about that day and tell
you how we liked being together and tell you how much we loved and miss our
dear friend.
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