My dad has always had the green thumb from...well, you know. He could grow anything and cure most plants from the typical over-care given to them by their owners. He has always been very particular about his yard...it has to be just so-so.

I personally think that we had the prettiest yard on the block. Our house was a normal two bedroom frame and it sat pretty much in the center/front of our yard. This meant that we had yard and garden completely around the property. Mom and Dad had a chain-link fence all around...to keep us in and stray animals out...so we were told. When people came down our street, they would sometimes stop and ask if they could have a bouquet of roses and offer to pay for them. That's how special our yard was.

Beginning at the gate where you entered the front yard and going around the property to the left, there was a rose bush planted about every four feet. They stopped at the west side gate, then picked up on the other side of it and continued down the west side of the house until they reached the garage where the fence on that side ended. (The fence picked up once more at the back wall of the garage and went to the end of the property line in the back). Then from the front gate going to the right they were planted in a similar fashion and went until they were even with an imaginary line drawn from the front door of the house to the fence.

The roses along the fence line were all the same color. A very deep, blood red and they smelled heavenly. My dad got creative and worked the rose bushes on the west side of the house into a Rose Arbor. It ran from the ground, up the fence and then across the space on wires that Dad had put up. Then it ran along the lower edge of the house. It was fun to sit under it and pretend all of the things that kids pretend. It also made a perfect shade for our old fashioned water-cooler (air-conditioning).

At the front porch, Dad built flower gardens on both sides of the walk coming up from the gate. These had a few different color rose bushes in them, as well as, some other types of flowers. Then he planted low growing flowers along both sides of the walk coming from the front gate up to the porch. It was very pleasing to the eye.

In the back yard, Dad had various flowers growing along the side of the garage on the west and the fence on the east. Then further in the back, behind the garage, he had a vegetable garden. We had sugar cane growing in the very back northeast corner of the yard. You didn't get around the cane any more than you had to. It was sticky, hard, and didn't smell very good. It also drew a ton of red fire ants!!!

If you could draw a line and divide the back yard into thirds from the house to the back fence, then dad had two Mimosa trees planted on the 2/3 line. They had grown pretty tall and provided plenty of shade. Under the one on the east side, we had a sand box built. Then going up to the house from the trees, just about in the center of the yard was a tether ball set up. Then a little further on toward the house on the left was our swingset.

Don't you agree that we had a great yard!!! Let me tell you...we kids hated to have to help dad work in the yard to keep it looking so nice. Dad would pull the weeds out of the flower gardens and it was our job to carry it all the way around the house, through the back yard and into the alley behind the house. We were to fill in the tire ruts with the weeds. But I think that the worst part was the fact that since we were small, it was our job to get under the rose bushes and pull the weeds at the base of the plants. We had to dodge all of the thorns and still get all of the weeds out.....wow what a job. Now that I am grown, it doesn't seem so bad...but it sure did then.....grin.

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