Pruning - Part II

 

When last we met, I was rambling discussing my issues with giving up/making changes/cutting back on things that weren't working in my yard/life/etc..... When I finally agreed to one major change, I slowly started to see that change didn't always have to be a bad thing. Especially when change meant taking something like this:

 

and getting something like this:

As lovely as it was and as nice as it made things, I still fought against other changes. I wanted to continue to struggle with the overcrowding of flower beds and runaway ground cover. To add to the madness of thinking I could do it all, I was also still trying to plant new annuals every year, which added even more to the upkeep. So this spring, I finally said enough is enough. I couldn't do it all and I couldn't deal with the guilt of not being able to do it all. So in a couple of weekends with a very helpful hubby, we cleaned house yard. We kept some Hostas (which we transplanted) and the rose bushes as I believed they were the item that meant the most to the previous owner. We removed all traces of the Pachysandra, added Hibiscus, more Hostas and a couple of new rose bushes. We collected rocks from Lake Ontario to add some character to the gardens and mulched the heck out of them to fight back the determined weeds. I'm not a professional gardener (or photographer), but I'm learning........

BEFORE

AFTER

(Please excuse the sad siding....that is a future project and as they say, "Rome wasn't built in a day..")

BEFORE

 AFTER

 (Again ignore the siding. Apparently the previous owners decided to begin siding the house and only did one half. I call it quirky chic.)

 

 BEFORE

 AFTER

 

The lessons that I learned from all of these changes are something I need to apply to my everyday life. How often do we continue to do the same things over and over, afraid to make a change; whether it's as simple as changing your hair style, to something as big as ending a relationship that is no longer healthy for you? I think you need to let go of something wrong in your life in order to make room for something that is right. My favorite example of this was hubby taking a risk to flight instruct full time. He let go of the security of a full time job that prevented him from his real love of teaching others to fly. As soon as he made the decision to make that change he had new students coming from every direction. 

For me, I had to learn to give a higher priority to what is most important to me in my life, not what I think is most important to everyone else. As I have said before - to my friends who have children, I have no idea how you do it all. Some days work, cleaning the house and maintaining all the relationships in my life, are all I can handle. Add in my love/need to write, 2 pets, and an attempt to exercise, and.....well I don't think I need to tell anyone how there doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day. So I needed to figure out how to protect those things that are most important to me (family/friends/writing) and how to weed out (pun intended) the lesser things......like having a perfectly clean house (no hubby I am not going to stop cleaning) or maintaining a full blown garden. My friend and I began scheduling a weekly night to get together and write. The funny thing is that once we did that, I realized how much I needed to write, which in turn made me say, "I need more time to write." An added bonus is that I get to also spend time with my friend and maintain a friendship that is so important to me. From all of this I'm more willing now to say I'm going to take a couple of hours on the weekend to work. I've made myself say no to a couple of things (nothing that was extreme and nothing that hurt anyone), but it was still hard for me nonetheless to not feel guilt over not doing it all. But I found the more that I ask for the time that I need, the easier it has become and the more readily it has been given. Change is hard; don't get me wrong. This isn't something that I came to overnight and it's not something that I won't struggle with, but my experience with pruning has shown me that sometimes you have to make changes to make something beautiful........

What changes are you contemplating?

Get out your pruning shears......

~ Adrienne