We have lived in our little house in Pemberton nearly five years already. For the first three, we had only a few rooms painted; the others were still contractor white. Because of my lousy close-up vision, Howard gets saddled with most of the painting, so it had to wait until he could squeeze it in among all his other responsibilities.
When we did decide to finish the rooms, we picked some pretty bold colors: a deep forest green for one wall of the kitchen and all of the laundry room, a burnt orange for the office, chocolate brown and beige for the bedroom and a vivid royal blue for the entry and hallways. We're delighted with it.
Then came the outside. Landscapers we're not. Worse yet, I don't know an azalea from a hollyhock so I was no use in the planning of the plantings. Worst of all, anything I have ever planted or bought in a thriving state quickly succumbed to my black thumbs and withered and died. My daughters used to kid me and say I could kill an artificial philodendron. Not any more, my friends, not any more!
Now there are knockout roses. I guess they got their name from the fact that it takes so much effort to knock them out. Three summers ago, we planted three bushes along the back of the house. Two summers ago, we added three more and planted four in the front mulch bed. Some are bright red, some deep pink, some soft pink and some are a fragrant yellow and white. Now we can truly say, with apologies to the rock group Chicago, we have colored our world. We'll enjoy the explosion of blooms and color until November. Aren't they beautiful?
