My husband and I moved a short two and a half years ago, but I just could not leave my garden.  I potted up pieces, made cuttings, and dug the special things I had searched out over the years.

Others couldn't be moved.  In that old garden, there were children and grandchildren of the wildlife I released while I was doing wildlife rehabilitation.  All were wild, the goal of wildlife rehabilitators, but some were less wild than others.  There was the squirrel who decided it was OK to eat his sunflower seeds while we sat on the deck nearby.  There was the little chickadee that landed on my husband's outstretched foot while he sat crossed legged, reading his book.

There was the father red-bellied woodpecker that carefully took striped sunflower seeds and hid them, one at a time, in the bark of a tall old pine. Then he would bring his fledglings to the tree and teach them to hunt out food in the crags.  He had done that for years.

One year, a young hummingbird perched on top of the shepherd's hook holding the hummingbird feeder.  He thought he was an eagle and fiercely guarded the feeder from all comers.  His siblings took turns luring him away.  While he chased one, others darted in to get a sip.

There have been barred owls and red-shouldered hawks and red-tailed hawks nesting nearby.  Wrens were everywhere.  One particularly mean-tempered little bird scolded us constantly.  Towhees called and thrashers thrashed up the mulch.  We would have brought them all with us if we could.

Friends live in my garden, both in the old and now in the new.  Some came home with me from nurseries I visited.  Others came from the generosity of gardeners and the overflow of their gardens.  I moved as many as I could.

Sharon is everywhere in this garden.  How could I leave her salvias in deep and pale blue or the reds of autumn?  Her crinum bulbs have bloomed and the ornamental grass became a fountain.  Her black-stemmed hydrangea is a beauty.

Margot is here, too.  Her cuttings are shrubs now and the yellow fall-blooming cassia has grown into a small tree.  The beautiful melon colored daylily, 'Barbara Mitchell' from Dot; the Florida anise, Illicium floridanum, with its purple-red blooms and fragrant dark foliage from Janice; the black bamboo from Jim; Phillip's hellebores and Mildred's achimenes; they all had to move with me.

A friend moved to Florida several years ago.  She stayed in touch with many friends after her move.  Her website, http://www.emilycompost.com/ is full of gardening advice and interesting articles and interviews.

She never told her friends here that she had cancer.  Her emails were always upbeat.  We were shocked to learn that she lost that battle.  Her family chose a perfect way to honor her.  They requested that memorials be made by giving a plant to a friend in her name.  Friends, and memories, live in my garden.

--Posted by Anne K Moore, June 17, 2007--