Glads

When I was a kid, my mom took us to my Great-Grandma W's house almost every Saturday to garden. My grandma had an amazing yard and garden. She lived on a very busy street in town, and she said that, often, people would stop by and ask if they could buy her flowers. I have the best memories of those times. Grams paid us $5 an hour, which was amazing and extremely generous of her. She got Meals on Wheels, so her fridge was stocked with nothing but junk food. I loved it. She kept Twinkies, Ding-Dongs, and Twix bars refridgerated, and oh, were they good. And all the Coke we could drink. It was heaven. She was so cool. I think of her every time I eat a Twix, a Twinkie, or a Ding-Dong.

I also think of her every time I walk into my garage. My garage smells exactly like Grandma's garage smelled. That musty, 1940's-era house garage smell.

Once, I remember we were planting Asters, and I thought they were called Bastards. "Mom, where does Grandma want these Bastards?" I felt so dumb when she and Grams laughed at me. :) I obviously chuckle about it now. I learned a little bit about gardening during all of those Saturdays, and I think I kind of inherited my love of flowers from my mom and great-grandma.

She really loved Gladiolas. She called them Glads. Nat got a bunch of Glad bulbs for an amazing price this last spring, and I copied her and bought some for my own garden. If my grams loved them, they must have been pretty awesome, I figured. They really are so gorgeous:

Could you just die? They're especially beautiful in vases. The perfect flower for giving.

Nat's seemed to be a lot happier than mine. And she had more of a variety of colors. Mine only bloomed in salmon and purple, but she had some really pretty reds bloom. Both of us had major issues with them tipping over. We planted them deep enough, I think. It's just that they're naturally really tippy flowers. I asked my mom what Grandma did about the tippyness of her Glads. Mom said that she planted the big kinds of marigolds around them to kind of hold them up. I'm going to try that out next year. The bulbs are currently happily in buckets in my basement for the winter.

I don't know what these things are:

They were a Ben purchase. But they have been wonderful. It's so nice to have something in bloom at the end of summer and through the fall. They've made us happy. And they've made the bees happy. Boy, do bees love those things.