Mouse & Trowel

A week ago, Philo and I rented the Christopher Guest comedy, For Your Consideration, in which actors in an independent film become entranced with the idea that they might be nominated for academy awards. As I watched Harry Shearer, Catharine O’Hara and Parker Posey, I realized that my bonds to their characters were not just cinematical.

Colleen of In The Garden Online thought Garden Blogging needed recognition, and her idea for the Mouse &Trowel awards was immediately accepted. Since the day another garden blogger told me she had nominated me as the Blogger You’d Like as a Neighbor, I‘d let myself hope for that Mousie nomination.

My hope came true! And I was given a second nomination for writing! To be placed in such company is a real honor for which I thank you.

And who are the other nominees for 'Neighbor'? Pam/Digging, Carol of May Dreams and A Study In Contrast’s Blackswamp Kim.

Well, here’s where I got the giggles, imagining the four of us living in some imaginary town [with perfect weather, of course] trading plants and livening up the street.

In our own individual neighborhoods, each of us is the neighbor with the landscape that doesn’t quite fit in: on Pam’s street, her stunning front courtyard with abundant native plants stops cars in their tracks; Carol may be more discreet in the front garden, but her beautiful, fenced vegetable garden breaks the mold for her neighborhood. Kim contrasts unusual colors, textures and blossoms with glee, under the gaze of statuary lions. And I’ve opened my garden gate, come out to the front with tools in hand and dug flowerbeds in the lawn.

Sometimes our neighbors in the bricks-and-sticks world don’t appreciate anything but manicured lawn and precision-cut shrubbery, and they are not fond of our horticultural experiments. So it’s especially wonderful to be selected as neighbors by you plant and nature lovers from the world of garden blogging. Thank you.