Teaser Tuesday, Meet Piper's Garden

I've started using my #ViewsOfMyGarden posts on social media again.  Watching the way it changes as the season goes along gives me glee.  From the first popping of my asparagus, to the fresh tomatoes, to the final burst of squash before the winter hits.  It's always changing.


The garden in next week's (Just 1 week to go!!) CARRY HER HEART becomes almost a character in its own right, so today's teaser is introducing you to Piper's garden:

From the front, my brick house with its big porch and small white dormer jutting out from the roof is as neat and orderly as I can possibly keep it. There are immaculately trimmed hedges along the porch. And on the porch, white wicker furniture, a welcome mat, and an antique milk box that my paperboy leaves the paper in.

But my backyard is not neat in the least. 

It’s overgrown and more than a bit wild looking. In a sea of well-kept lawns, my backyard was the neighborhood anomaly. I’d like to say I felt bad about that, but in truth, my yard is fenced in, so unless my neighbors are standing on something, I don’t think it bothers them. At least no one’s mentioned it to me if it does.
When I first moved in five years ago, there was a six-foot, solid wooden fence around the yard, but very little grass and no trees or bushes. That first spring, I went to a local nursery and went a bit crazy. I spent a week planting everything from serviceberry trees to raspberries bushes. Then I added a couple apple trees and a chestnut tree.

That fall, I put in hundreds of bulbs and added more in the spring, then threw three containers of wildflower seeds into any bare bits of earth that were left. Still, I added. Mints, chicory, milkweed, Queen Anne’s lace . . . 

Sometimes one plant choked out a neighbor, and occasionally something totally unexpected popped up. But five years later, my yard is perfectly imperfect. 

It’s a chaotic jumble of greenery.

If my front porch was my place to work, then my backyard was my place to dream. 

One of the nicest perks about being a professional writer was that daydreaming was part of my job description, and my yard was the perfect place to do that.

You can preorder Carry Her Heart now! It's available as a paperback, Kindle eBook, and audiobook!

Holly