I’m reminded this morning to slow down and take a few minutes to breathe in the new colors of our garden outside. It’s the peonies, sitting on our dining room table, releasing ants for dog and kiddo to catch, that make me appreciate this moment. This day, May 26, rolls around only once a year and while the date is of no importance, the moment where peonies, pincushion flowers and the little princess spirea are blooming is significant. Gardens change in seasons. Certain plants bloom at certain times and it’s fitting to enjoy them at their peak.

There’s a beauty in planting a garden from scratch. We walked into our home in December 2001, greeted by very little grass in the backyard and a whole lot of ugly. There was an empty dog run taking up a ridiculous amount of space in our small city lot. A tall privacy fence blocked our yard from the four cute children next door. An RV had been parked almost up to the back door and the dirt in the “parking spot” was saturated with oil and other nastiness. Our front porch, formerly existing as housing for any and all clutter owned by the previous homeowner, was cordoned off to outsiders and bore a sign saying, “No Solicitors!” There was no front garden to speak of.

So we moved into the place knowing that our new neighbor (and pastor and friend) loved to garden. Since I worked with him in the church office, he was constantly asking me when I wanted a few transplants from his gardens. I’m pretty sure Brad ended up in the yard with a shovel and a plant or two, and that’s how we got rolling.

The delight in going from a yard of nothing to a yard of something is that we can look at every plant and recall something about its origin. The south side of the house sees the bee balm that Brad unceremoniously deposited in the earth. It has taken a beating (there was that one summer I didn’t water it hardly at all), but still produces gorgeous purple flowers that both bees and Beccas appreciate. There is the unbelievably healthy variegated dogwood bush in the backyard that Jeremy and my dad planted. It was so small in the beginning; hard to believe considering how huge it is now. We trim it back every year to prevent it from taking over the universe. More recently, I’m seeing a second wave of perennials as they move around the yard. Sometime in the last eight years—I can’t say exactly when—Jeremy became quite the gardener and began his work as Master Gardener around here. Since then he has planted, and now transplanted, numerous plants. There’s the salvia, sedum, grasses and black-eyed susans now bordering the alley in the furthest point in our yard. They all began in different locations but have been divided and then transplanted according to the Master’s will. The peonies, which make me happy beyond explanation, came from a cardboard box at Sam’s Club. Only two bulbs (if that’s what you call what I found in that box) turned into the glorious plants that shoot from the ground each spring. And then there are the plants I can’t even name because Jeremy picked them out and planted them on his own.

There is something deeply satisfying about the garden. It’s an investment in both one’s spirit and one’s future, and it’s rewards are seemingly endless.

Excuse me, I spy another healthy black ant on my table, another escapee from the petals of the pink peonies in front of me.