As you know, the gardening gene runs in my family...just not in me. In my constant hopes to have a voluminous hydrangea bush, I picked up this little beauty a week or so ago. I wandered it, in the container, around my backyard.

I almost killed it.

My mother, taking pity on the plant, and on me, decided to give it a nice big bed to live on.

She cleared a 4x6 patch of grass with her trusty pickaxe, then dug an enormous hole which she filled with topsoil, water, and food. She covered the entire area in pine bark mulch, and not even 24 hours later the sweet little plant opened its first blossom.

So, I wish this story were relating my personal success, but it's really an ode of gratitude to my Mom.