Square by Square

Good morning, fellow gardeners!

I've got to be brutally honest with you...

I've been just absolutely droooooling for three long winters over a big, white arbor that I found online. When I came across it, I just KNEW that I had to have it - one way or another. Somehow.  Someway.  Someday.

I could picture it standing proudly in the center of my garden, surrounded by my favorite peonies and crowned with huge, fragrant pink climbing roses and lush clematis. Just like the ones we all see in our gardening mags, ya know? Do you have arbor dreams, too?

I didn't know how I would accumulate the vast amount of cash that this big beauty was going to cost me - but I just knew I had to have one. 

Somehow.  Someway. Someday.

My brother called one day and asked if we would like the grapevines that had boldly claimed the cedar arbor in his backyard.  After an enthusiastic, "Sure!", we made out way to his house and started digging. And digging.  And digging.  The job that I had so casually said, "It'll only take a few minutes to get these babies up" took us over an hour.  As I stood next to that huge arbor (catching my breath, mind you), I asked what he planned on doing with the arbor. He made my day when he said, "You can have it."  (Love ya, bro!)

After another hour long job on the following Sunday (after spending a couple backbreaking days digging out sod to create a border garden and the perfect spot for the new arbor), my hubby and I hauled my new fav thing home on a trailer and set the three pieces up on some old sawhorses in the backyard.

White paint was what this treasure needed - of course!

So...day after day...for four days straight, four hours a day --- I painted.  And painted.  And painted.

Do you know how many little lattice squares one has to paint on a seven foot arbor?!  I counted one day as I moronically stabbed the frazzled paintbrush into the little corners and sides.  I think my mind has selectively forgotten, but it was something like...ahem....468.  That's one coat of primer and two coats of paint for two sides of the arbor.  It's a job that I would not want to do again.

But I'm not complaining!  Nope!  Not moi!

Because once hubby and I erected that beautiful thing in the exact spot where I had pictured it these past few years, I knew it was worth every single minute I spent dabbing and pushing paint into that latticework.  It was a thing of beauty!  My garden was one step closer to being completed.  (sigh!)

I am breathlessly awaiting my 'Zepherine Drouhin' climbing roses and my 'Hagley' clematis to creep their way up the sides and over the top creating a crown of fragrant pink. Incredibly, they are already sporting big buds. It will be beautiful, you know.  And I promise I'll share that day with you, my friends!

The moral of this story?  Don't give up visualizing what you see in your mind's eye, whether in your garden or your home.  You just never know where your next treasure will come from!  (*wink)

  Blessings on your day!

~ Laurie