Sofia's Garden - Early Stages

When Sofia died we received many cards of sympathy, donations to the church and other gifts.  We received the tree from good friends in honor of Sofia that we planted in the front yard.  We also received a generous gift of money from former coworkers/friends, some of Tim's coworkers, and from my mom's teacher friends (whom I've known my whole life) to be used towards a rose garden in memory of Sofia.

Now that Spring is here we're starting to plan and work on creating Sofia's rose garden in our backyard.  This will be a place for us to think of her and enjoy my favorite flower of all, the rose.

Tim has already removed the sod for the area it will be, and this weekend we decided to scout out some water fountains.  We ended up buying a big chunk of the items on our list!

We spotted a water fountain as soon as we walked in to Mulhall's but it had a yellow tag on it (on hold for someone until 4/15).  It was 4/16 so that was up, but we weren't sure what the story was so we decided we'd take a look at what else was there.  We found many we loved - some well outside our budget - and we narrowed it down to two that we thought would be perfect (and could afford!).  We went back to the one we saw first and asked about it.  It turned out the people didn't want it after all so it was ours if we wanted it.  It was the only one they had and it was marked down considerably from the original price.  We got it!

We decided to just "look around" at what they had for roses...and ended up with a cart full to buy!  We picked out some good ones.  Some baby/miniature roses that should be great had perfect names: 'Miracle' (white roses) and 'Daddy's Little Girl' (pinkish red).  Of COURSE we put those in the cart right away.  Then we made our way over to some climbing roses.  I asked Tim what he thought of them and as soon as I said it I spotted a ladybug on one of the leaves!  We decided right then & there we were getting those.  Crazy logic, I know, but we took that as a sign that she wanted those.  Maybe because the rose has a child-like name: 'Candy Land'.  It was the only ladybug we saw the whole day (and we looked at TONS of roses).  We also picked out 'Joseph's Coat' for climbing roses along with some purple, yellow and 'Super Hero' red.  None of the roses are blooming yet, but some have buds so it won't be long!

Candy Land roses that the ladybug was on:

From Other Photos

From Other Photos

Cart full of roses & the trellis for the climbing roses:

From Other Photos

I'll update more once we get the rose garden more setup. Won't be long!