Tuesday, July 23, 2024

Mothe's Yard https://rockingwithdannie.blogspot.com/2024/07/mothes-yard.html


petunia


In the 30s  and 40s,  green close clipped lawns were a rarity.  Although lawn mowers had been invented, these were years of the Great Depression and very  few people had money for  such a non-essential item. 

 So yards were bare ground  and  either raked smooth or swept, depending upon the type of soil. My mother's yard was of deep sand.  Sweeping was a hopeless  project, and raking almost  as bad, so she pulled up the weeds  and bought a few packages of flower seeds.


Of course, they were annuals, but when  the flowers are allowed to mature, and  drop their seeds they’re almost as nice as perennials Every petunia and phlox seed must have come up.





Snapdragon and larkspur were not as plentiful, but had enough blooms to pick a few for playtime–like making necklaces by stringing their flowers together, or popping  the snapdragons“mouths” open.  Hollyhocks towered over it all.

The sandy sidewalk was lined  with jonquils, the smaller, fragrant version of daffodils  Perennial sweet-pea grew nearby.   It was actually a  vine,  but mother contained  it with a wrap  of chicken  wire to  hold its  tendrils in a  bush-like mound. 

There was no place for a vine to grow  because the  only  fence  was between the house  and the field,  and was covered with a trumpet  vinevine, and both ends  of the front  porch were covered with honeysuckle and Seven  Sisters rose vines.  

 It’s an understatement to  say  my  mother loved flowers.