Grandmom Hughes had a green thumb.  She could grow just about anything -- a gardenia bush in a old bucket without getting scale.   Start african violets from a leaf and keep them happy growing in an assortment of pots.  She never bought potting soil, just went out into the woods and filled up the pot and used that.

And one of the things that she loved were azaleas.

 

The house was set on a large lot and on two sides there were woods.  There was a really long driveway back to a garage and shed.   There were bushes that outlined the property on three sides, and bushes in a row next to the driveway about halfway back.  And in the spring, those bushes would burst into bloom.  She had every single kind of azalea that I have ever seen:  pale pink, delicate lavender, white, peach, bright red, purple, neon pink.  She had ones that the flowers were absolutely huge, and some where the flowers were tiny.  There were some that were double blooms, and varigated ones with splashes of color or rimmed in white or tipped with color.  Some bloomed early.  Some bloomed late.

She was always puttering around with them.  She knew how to start a new bush -- just put a branch on the ground and weigh it down for a while and it would take root.  It isn't as easy as it sounds, but it worked like a charm for her.  She was always moving them around to get different looks or to encourage growth.  Yup, you heard me -- moving them around, rearranging them in her yard like you would change the furniture in a room.  The bushes have shallow roots, she would explain, and she would dig around a bush that she wanted to move and pry it out of the soil and plop it in her wheelbarrow.   Bushes that weren't doing well or needed nurturing got rotated back towards the woods.  And for about six weeks in the spring, her house was surrounded by flowers [and bees] and she loved it.

I had gotten bushes from her and planted them when I had a house on Poplar Drive, but I don't know if they are still there or not.  Some time ago I drove over to Edwards Lane to see Grandmom's house but to my horror, all the bushes were gone! What a shame....  But seeing the blooms in the spring will always remind me of Grandmom .....