flowers, garden photos, gardens, nature, Photography, Photos

Butterflies in Corrie’s Garden and the Phlox

Corrie's Mom
A butterfly visits the candy cane phlox in Corrie’s Butterfly Garden.

I want to share the garden everyday.

It doesn’t matter the time of year: spring, summer, winter, or fall. As Monty Don says on Gardners World–a British (BBC) show available on Amazon Prime–the gardening is always changing.

I see it as a way to share Corrie growing in the world, since she’s physically unable to do so on Earth. For example, there are exactly nine gardens on the property.

A beautiful butterfly visits different phlox flowers.
A butterfly flies in at the feet of an angel. (In this picture, the butterfly is hard to see.)
Butterflies also visit a beautiful wall of phlox, on the side of the house, planted long ago by John’s mother.

It never mattered to me if someone was tired of seeing posts of the gardens on any social media. The gardens offer a purpose, fulfillment, beauty, and a vision of Corrie in the world.

The gardens also connects a family through the generations when–as the story of John’s estranged family has been told and met with peace–wouldn’t exist otherwise. There is embrace, love and forgiveness not discovered in parts of the bad, decomposed soil of a person’s soul.

John’s grandmother’s rose bush still grows strong, and I put coffee grounds around it. Divided and propagated plants his mother established are spread throughout the yard and gardens. When one views the wall of phlox from the side of the house, you then see the second level on the Butterfly Garden’s retaining wall.

The wall of phlox planted by John’s mother.

I try, with time, to become a better photographer. I feel as though I fail in capturing the beauty I witness on the farm, specifically in the morning or at sunset. I hope to share different themes or journeys we make as our growing season of 2024 takes off.

Words and photos by R.A. Bridges

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Published by Corrie's Mom

They say teacher turn over is high right now, and many teachers will leave the profession in five years or less. I will enter my seventh year as a full-time teacher, and my 12th year in education after I'd started as a sub and teacher assistant. I was the student in the 1990s you did not want in your classroom because I was diagnosed with ADHD and did not know how to socialize with other kids. I was due to be tested for autism, but this was considered an ostracizing experience for a child then, especially a girl. I am a third generation teacher and author of seventeen creative works.

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