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Arizona has grown on me (slowly...oh so very slowly) in the six years I've been here. One thing I can't seem to warm up to is the brown dirt and lack of abundant lush, thick, swaying-in-the-breeze greenery I love so much back home in Virginia. So, when we bought our house, Todd and I made a vow that our backyard would be as lush and colorful as the hot Arizona sun would allow.

We planted vitex (which look like butterfly bushes back in VA) and bright green ground cover that becomes blanketed with tiny white flowers in spring. We planted a bright red bottle brush bush and their twin plants (can't think of their names off hand). We planted jonquil bulbs that electrify the landscape in late winter, and a crepe myrtle (also an old fave from home). Our snail vine grows up one of the columns of the patio, so lush and thick and bursting with strange purple flowers that seem to love the intense heat. We even planted a lilac, but it's not big enough to bloom yet. We'll be gone before it has the chance. There are even citrus and pomegranate and donut peaches, but we'll never reap their harvest.

It will all die while it sits empty waiting for someone to move in. In honor of it's memory and the love we put into our backyard (and didn't even get to finish), here is a bee on Todd's bottle brush. I will miss you, bottle brush. There's a back story to that bottle brush, but I'll save that memory just for Todd and me.

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