Best of 2024
January 2024 I am besieged by post holiday blues (perhaps it is pan holiday as I oft dread the holidays before they even begin). Then how is it possible to have post holiday let downs…. To add to melancholia: viral onslaughts, deep trenches of depression, and sudden death of an acquaintance and I am taken aback. My face is down. My gardens beckon as there are winter chores but my strength has left my viral ridden body. Maybe half of my heart has left too, would there be no help? I am weary but start at the arbor. The vine must be pruned for the best of the grapes. It is a harsh and painful cutting away of the garbage.
John 15 “Every branch that does not bear fruit, he prunes”. He cuts away what is toxic, replaces with vitality.

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser” so begins the advent as we hope for glorious fruit!
The VivaVonne is in need of winter haircuts! It is a nose-running cold day in January. Living well is learning how to endure best the uncomfortable in this life. Life puts us in uncomfortable places. Gardening blesses with divine gifts of creation but teaches hard lessons. Pruning of the rose bushes and boxwoods happens with care. Straw goes down. Freshly applied straw is this gardeners’ delight! I wish it could always look this trim! No weeds! While my heart is pumping and life is infusing, peace fills my entire being. My Mom (VivaVonne is dedicated to her) was plagued by a life long mental illness and now is at peace. I am at peace. The garden is at rest for the winter.




Winter 2022 brought record lows. The branches of the young olive trees were without green, brittle and brown. I fear the worst. Then, at the base, there is green, oh yes, there is life growing from the roots! “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit says the LORD of hosts”. Zechariah 4:6. This passage is a picture of God’s faithfulness. This is a reminder that His Spirit is poured out to us, like the oil in the lampstand and from the olive trees.
Spring 2024: The spring first flush of VivaVonne, now four years old. So if we are being honest here…. I am a passionate garden girl, but to look around you cannot always tell it. All of my photos are legit, no apps to improve and no editing. However, the VivaVonne this spring, was majestic. Dear Reader, I simply do not have the photography skills to portray. The following are half hearted attempts, but pale in the true glory.


Winter garden work delivers rewards in the spring. The garden springs eternal. Warm and breezy days in the gardens are with boundless expectations. There is not enough daylight to contain the sheer joy.
Summer 2024 brings harsh conditions in the deep south. The heat steals from your very soul. Fatigue is unwelcome and overstays, days on end. Evil weeds win. Summer rains nourishes the weeds, selfishly invading. One has to reach deep to find endurance and acclimatization.

Enola Garden Summer 2024: Cooking is a love language from me to my family. I so love the feverish burn of preparing ambitious recipes whist squeezing in a mad, quick run to the Enola potager to clip a few fresh ingredients.
It is the worst of the summer.
Grief does not seem to leave me.
How can this be 11 years later?
They say, “She never got over it”.
Why can I not get past this?
When will this heaviness lift?
Why does loneliness close in on me?
From the anguish of Psalm 88:1 “O Lord, God of my salvation, I cry out day and night before you.”

Owls are hooting early morning in August. I walk to the VivaVonne and listen. Don’t you smile when you see a yellow rose? I walk south of the house and there it is again. So the owl is flying back and forth? No, it is the sweet love song of two owls.
From the ancient writings of Job 12:7 – 8
“But ask the beasts and they will teach you;
the birds of the heavens, and they will tell you;
or the bushes of the earth and they will teach you;
and the fish of the sea will declare to you.
Who among you does not know
that the hand of the Lord has done this?”
It is the sweet love song of God who lifts the heaviness with the owls as they tell and the bushes of the earth as they teach.

Fall 2024:
#widowremindsmeofaninsect
#spiderlilygarden
#somedaysareblack
This old beautiful lily is glorious in the (finally!) fall! I found a single bulb from my former home before this one, hidden in the grass. That gardener was from a day gone by. Who knew! What a gift!


This camelia in the Sadaharu garden is shooting up! Only in the deep South can the fall be truly celebrated!
The Best of 2024. Truly.