today we will play outside

...all day! At least that's the plan. I have much laundry to do, and prefer to hang it on the clothesline to dry. I also want to plant some more seeds in our little bunny all-you-can-eat buffet aka garden spot. The compost pile needs turning. Poison ivy needs killing. Flower beds need weeding. Shrubs need pruning, and while I'm at it, I'll keep some cuttings to root from that gardenia DH keeps complaining about being too close to the front porch. Yes I know it's the wrong time of year to prune it, but I better do it before he does!

This particular gardenia and I have a long history. It was my very first mail order purchase. I got it from Michigan Bulb Company before I learned they weren't a reputable company (at least not way back in the 80's) when I opened my first ever checking account. I think I was 15. I got this scrawny little twig with three wilted leaves in the mail and babied it along in a flower pot for about ten years before I ever got it to bloom. It came with me to college, and back home, and somehow followed me through my first marriage, divorce, and then my second attempt at college. When my husband and I bought my mother's house, I planted it outdoors on the other side of the sidewalk from a much larger gardenia that was originally planted in the late 1950's. It has thrived there, much to everyone's suprise. I don't know what variety it is. It was labeled "hanging gardenia" by the catalog and came in a tiny plastic hanging basket. When it matured, the leaves became variegated! The miniature blossoms look and smell just like the other gardenia, but are about the size of a nickel or maybe a quarter, much smaller than the other which has softball sized blooms. I have never pruned it or attempted to root cuttings from it, so this will be a first.