A Garden in Queens

I have to admit, I did not take to gardening at first. I can't imagine it's as pleasurable to garden in New York City as it is in, say, the Hudson Valley or in Pennsylvania. I had to figure it all out.

I am lucky enough to have "outdoor space". (For those of you not from an urban area, outdoor space is an amenity. Not a God-given right. ) And, I had to move out of Manhattan and into Queens to get some of this mythical Outdoor Space. It has been downright eye-opening. Between trees dying, perennials NOT coming back and the random visits by caterpillars (who ate all my dill and parsley), twig caterpillars on my roses, and bees + honeycombs, you'd think I was on an Animal Planet episode and not in a very industrialized part of Queens.

The only gardening I'm doing is what I think people call Container Gardening. I have a gazillion planters, and a bazillion pots. So I guess I'm a little limited to what I can do. But this is great for me. If I had LAND, I just don't know what I would do with it. So my containers are finally abloom. And while it's taken me awhile to warm up to the whole dirt and bug thing, I think I like it. I think I really really like it. It's given me that much-needed downtime between work and knitting. And it forces me to go outside and spend some time in the sun... another thing that seems to be an amenity in NYC.

So, let's see... I've got my first rose:



And some pretty light pink flowers (yeah, I threw out those plastic things with the flower's name):



And these are for one special little Pug. Her favorites: strawberries:



We've already plucked off the ripened one's and given them to her. She's waiting not-so-patiently for these.