Bea's Garden

This glorious camillia and its neighboring daffodils welcome me to Bea’s Garden this morning. 

Bea was born with a bunch of siblings on our roof back in the aughts. One by one the kittens found homes with friends and relatives until only Bea and Waffles were left to become Lillian’s. When Lil moved to Queens they flew there with her and when Atlanta became her home base, they moved there eventually to Summerhill and the shadow of what was Turner Field. 

Bea died last year and we decided a resting place for her would be the ignored but quiet space enclosed between the loropetalum hedge along our driveway and the house. Later I laid a curving path of pea gravel through it, planted tulip and daffodil bulbs, panzies, liriope, black-eyed susans, ferns, Miss Huff lantana, purple coneflowers… some of it has lived. I put a small table and four chairs in it. I’ve dug a hole and set a pole for a bird feeder that is ready to go up near the living room bay window that overlooks it. So now we call it Bea’s Garden. The entrance on front and back is marked by the camellias that Thomas Humphrey planted for me years ago.