I planted flowers at two family graves last weekend. My paternal grandparents have been dead for a while (1970 and 1981, respectively) and my dad never planted anything at their grave, but now that my dad is buried there, my mom really wanted to plant stuff. Since I'm the only relative left in Connecticut, the job fell to me. I bought pink, white and red impatiens, the shade-loving flower, because I had the impression that the grave was in the shade. I also bought some white alyssum. I turned out to be wrong about the shade, but I planted the impatiens anyway, and decided to check back on the grave this coming weekend. There was supposed to be some sort of marker for my dad at the grave, but there was nothing there and when I told my mother she called cemetery office and they said they knew about it and would take care of it. So I want to check on that too.

My maternal grandfather has been dead since 1962 and my grandmother sporadically kept up on planting stuff there. After my grandmother died in 2000, my mom and I have tried to keep up on it. One of the problems is that my grandmother chose a stone that has a planter on either side of it so you have to plant stuff in both or it will just look unbalanced and not "right." It was typical Nana behavior to create more of project by choosing a gravestone like that. Anyway, that grave gets full sun and my mom and I have had a hard time getting anything to last there. Last year she put in hosta and I was surprised to see that *one* of them came back up. Of course, the other planter just had weeds in it so I had to fill that one, and I put flowers around the hosta in the other one. The hosta was kind of small so there was room.

The plants I chose for Nana's grave are pink and white vinca and purply blue lobelia. I love the color combination. I ended up having some left over so I planted some of it in my flower box on the porch. I still have some left over so I was thinking I should put it at my dad's grave if the impatiens don't make it. I'm hoping not to have to do that though. I think I would like to put the rest in a hanging pot I have. It can hang next to the calibrachoa plant my mom bought for me in Rockport. She wanted to pay me back for the flowers for the graves, but instead we decided she could just buy me a plant as a gift.

Here is the planter that had some hosta growing in it at Nana's grave.

Labels: family, spring

posted by Miss Rachel 6/07/2007 06:36:00 PM

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