I was going to tell this story myself, but it’s rainy, so the guys are talking football constantly (preseason), and the Lady and Valentine are napping, so my granddaughters, Dee and Tine, have reminded me that when football is the topic, they get some Grandma time, so we’re doing this together.

I’ll just keep typing, while my granddaughters watch to add some more viewpoints to the story.  It gets confusing to type who is talking when, all the time, on this blog, but this can get even more confusing, since some of it is first person (I am writing it), while more will be Tine and Dee adding. Easiest way to do this is to assume I’m narrating, unless I add Dee and Tine’s embellishments by simply typing their names with a colon, so you’ll know it’s one of them. So, here goes something:

Everyone that knows me knows I’m lousy at gardening, so, even though I’m the oldest Garden Gal…

Tine: the really, really, really oldest Garden Gal!

… they only let me water and feed…

Dee: when we tell her to add the Miracle-Gro in with the watering!

…move stuff around-with-their-approval (Grandma eyeballs her granddaughters, knowing they would have added that, if she didn’t beat them to it. Granddaughters and Grandma smile, knowingly at each other), and collect cool containers and décor for the garden.

Tine: Our mommies don’t like shopping, and we prefer playing to shopping with our Peoples grandparents, since they usually only go grocery shopping!

Dee: BORING!

Tine: Wellllll, until they come home with some hotdogs and cookies for us!

Both: Tehehehehehe

There is one other thing I’m allowed to do in the garden – create stuff! So far, I’ve only created stuff like compost containers…

Dee: Wait! Shouldn’t we tell how we compost in a 16-foot square concrete backyard?

(Grandma shrugs her shoulders, and then looks at Tine to explain.)

Tine (pleased she was chosen to explain): We started out using the 6-gallon plastic buckets, donated by Grandma’s Dad after emptying out the grape juice he needed to make wine. Our Daddies drill several holes in the bottom and a couple of rows of holes on the lower sides of the buckets, so bugs can come in to eat the dead plants and, ummmm, ….

Dee: Empty out what they ate fro their other end?!

(Giggle break.)

Tine: Yeah, empty out compost!

(More giggling.)

Dee: Of course, 6-gallons isn’t beary much considering how many plants we had, so we ended up using three buckets, and still needed room.

Tine: We didn’t know how busy Grandma’s been! We’ve had a huge plastic trashcan in our backyard since right before we were born.  (Grandma adds: Since before we moved here 16 years ago.) Ever since they’ve lived here, Grandma and Grandpa have used it to put the stuff that magically falls into our yard in it.

Magically?! Cute! Roofers tossed down tarp paper into our yard. Electricians dumped long spirals of wiring. The “wind” brought us trash, like plastic bags, or aluminum foil from chocolate covered Easter eggs, peanut shells, cardboard boxes, leaves, and lots of buttonwood fuzz from their balls. Whenever our drainage trap got covered with this stuff, we’d clean it off and just stick it in the trashcan. Over the years it would settle into a heap of sludge – too much chemicals in it for soil, but melted into a gooey, wet sludge.

Dee: But it got too heavy just to put it out front for the trash men, so Grandma removed a little of it into plastic bags, as she finished filling up the bags with household trash or diseased plants, for the last three years.

Tine: She just finished clearing it completely out this week, and even cleaned it with soap, bleach and warm water, so nothing bad last in it to harm our future compost!

I’m glad I’m telling this story. That was just one of my “creative” projects, and the grossest. The ones I liked and even worked, include the butterfly-drinking hole…

Dee: she used a terra-cotta plate, usually used under round terra-cotta container, so the water can be wicked up to the plants roots.

Tine: …then she added some of her big stones that she collects on vacation, washing them several times to get the oceans’ salt off them, and puts them carefully throughout the plate, to give the butterflies places to stand on, without getting their feet wet, when they sip the water with their proboscis.

Dee: A proboscis looks like one of those party blowing things that unroll and whistle, but it is more like a straw to suck nectar and water up into their mouths, so they can reach deeply into thin flowers.

Tine: She would clean out and refill every day…

Dee: …so mosquitoes don’t fill it with their eggs.

(Grandma patiently waits for the girls to finish. Looks startled, when they finally do, making them laugh as she continues) BUT, we only saw one butterfly use it. It seems the bees and flies liked it better. Of course, our garden needs bees for pollinating, and we’re lucky to be in an area where our bees aren’t dying by the thousands, so they had lots of reasons to stay around our garden.

I also liked our garden nursery, when I just used a couple of pieces of 2 X 4 in the wired basket below our herb grill, so the little 2 inch by 2 inch terra cotta pots could be used for propagating baby plants, without them toppling between the wires.

Here’s what it looks like.

But this garden is all about the Garden Gals with a child-like feel, so I’ve wanted to make a Teddy Bear topiary for a while, and finally had the time to make it. I used these directions. It is hard to get the ears and feet hooked on well, and filled with sphagnum moss. I also had problems getting the head with muzzle the proper size.

Tine: We enjoyed the way she did it. Grandma bought a rubber ball to push the chicken coop wire around it…

Dee: …then gave us the rubber ball, when she didn’t need it anymore! Good deal!

I ran out of moss, and, since it’s the end of the season, I had to buy a different type, so his head is a darker brown then the rest of his body. I also discovered the purpose of needing fishing line, but, if you look carefully, you’ll discover that clear line is better then green line.

Tine: Ummm, Grandma, are you going to show him or not?

(Grandma laughs.)

Here he is at his first location. It wasn’t a great location, since you can’t see the pot he’s sitting on.

Tine: We all had to take our picture with all the Teddy Bears in the garden. (The butterfly-drinking hole that Grandma created is on the table next to our new Teddy Bear topiary.) We were going to have a contest to have you guess how many Teddy Bears were in this picture, but you can’t see me. I am at the top of the yellow flowered plant next to our new Teddy Bear, but only my Doll Baby can be seen at the top, and you need a magnifying glass to see her. (The leaves hid me.)

Also, that plant Dee and I have climbed is called “Teddy Bear Sunflower,” because the flowers are soft and fuzzy like a Teddy Bear. The problem? Well, it’s one plant, but has lots of flowers, so is it just one Teddy Bear Sunflower, or a whole bunch of Teddy Bear Sunflowers on one plant? Beary confusing. (Even more confusing, if you can’t tell which of us are Teddy Bears and which are stuffed doggies, cat and bunny, It keeps getting more confused, if you can’t see our Teddy Bear baby dolls and action figures. See why we gave up asking? Tehehehehe)

Dee: It’s also hard to see our new bear buddy, because of the sunlight hitting just half of him. Hard to see my cousin, Tee, who is sitting on his leg to the left, and poor Tine got cut out of the picture completely.

We’ve named him Fuzzy Wuzzy, because he is fuzzy, but not in the typical way. The sphagnum moss is longer and furrierer then regular peat moss, and the ivy on him is kinda fuzzy without being fuzzy! He likes the name!

Of course, everyone sitting in front of him still makes it impossible to see the pot he is sitting on, so we’ll have to s’plain. If you look carefully at the picture that Tine s’plained, you can kinda see the pot that the Teddy Bear Sunflowers are growing in. (Yes, we like the chair with the butterfly on it, too!) OK, it’s hard to see the pot well, but you can see that it’s honey yellow. It’s also round, so looks like the same kind of pots that Winnie the Pooh uses to save his hunny! Fuzzy Wuzzy is sitting on that pot’s twin, and the word “Hunnee” is painted on the side, so everyone knows he’s definitely a Teddy Bear! Cool, huh?

Tine: She has her creative moments, and we appreciate them, particularly this one. It gives me an idea for a new joke! Wanna hear it?

(Grandma and Dee look to hear it with interest. Even the rest of the family stops talking to hear a new joke.)

Tine: How many knees do Teddy Bears have?

Dee: 2?

Teddy (Tine’s Daddy): 3?

Tine: Nope! 4! Left knee, right knee, hinnee and hunnee!

(Groan and a short laugh from Grandma, while everyone else takes time out for a laughing fit.)

Well, while they’re all laughing, I did want to show one last picture.

Excuse the background coloring – my photo software screwed up in the coloring of the picture, when I tried to close the program. I didn’t notice the mistake, so it saved the picture in some wrong colors. At first, it was dark purple and orange, so the best I could do was to get the flowers the right color, and just promise that my feet and our concrete are not blue or purple, even on bad days.

(The T. Bear family goes back to laughing all over again.) I just wanted to show two of the flowers growing back to back. I like those sunflowers even more then the squirrels did, and they stole them all within three days of this picture.

Now all I have to do is figure out how to bring the topiary in when it starts getting coldm since the moss is to remain moist constantly.

(The T. Bear family has finally stopped laughing hysterically.)

Thank you, Dee and Tine for helping me make this entry. Next summer, I’d like everyone to help me figure out what the next topiary should be. (All start shouting out the type of animal they are.)

Tine and Dee: Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhuh! (Family quiets in surprise.) Thank you Grandma for letting us help you, too! It was fun! We have all winter to decide what the next topiary will be.