I have been told on several occasions that I have a green thumb. What really does it mean to have a green thumb? I was wondering where that term came from so I did a little bit of research. Some say that King Edward I loved fresh peas. He had many gardeners who supplied him with many peas. He gave a prize to the one that had shelled the most peas and thus had the greenest thumb.

Others say that “a green thumb” is from the color your thumbs (and fingers) may turn when you pull lots of weeds and work with plants. I like that explanation better.

When someone tells me that I just have a green thumb I like to give them my explanation on how they too can get a green thumb. A green thumb comes from lots of work, sweat, and pulling weeds. You can’t just plant your garden or flowers and expect that they will get beautiful. You have to invest lots of time and work to have them looking nice. And if you are someone that does not enjoy the outdoors, pulling weeds, and watering plants then you may never gain a “green thumb”.

Let me show you some of my flowers and you can see that it is rewarding to work hard for some beautiful results.

Yesterday I looking at some old pictures of when I had 5 little ones. The children always looked so sweet and I wondered if back then I had any extra time for flowers. I remembered that at that house we did not have many flower beds. But then I saw some pictures of the flower beds that I did have and they had some beautiful flowers in them. Also some of the pictures of the children had some lovely pots in the background. Somehow I had forgotten that I did have some beautiful flowers 15 years ago. I was investing more of my time in my children so I had a lot less flowers but still everyone needs a few.

My purple cone flowers are almost over and this year I discovered something new about them. They had a very lovely fragrance. Was it just this year or did I always miss it before?

I like to have one spot where I just seed flowers and grow a new perennial from seed. That spot is usually by our mini barn. This year I seeded zinnias and I had planned to thin them but I never got around to it.

Maybe you don’t have a lot of time for flowers but you enjoy them. My advice to you would be to just have a small flower bed or just one pot of flowers. Just take a few minutes a day and check if they need watered. If you give them just a little time every day then you will be rewarded with some beautiful flowers and maybe a small green thumb!