Why “Garden with Grace”?

In 2009, I blogged for PBS New Hour’s Patchwork Nation project, representing Nashua, NH – a ‘Monied ‘burb’.

Years earlier, I’d learned to blog while I was employee of Sun Microsystems. (It appears that the group blogs – Women@Sun and the DogBlog – where I once contributed to are no longer online since Oracle acquired the company.)

I’ve always enjoyed contributing to a blog, especially in a group effort and decided in 2011 that I needed to start the process again, but this time on my own. I felt the need to blog about topics that are more personal vs. work/career related. So, I picked two things: 1. Gardening 2. My dog, Grace.

The Garden with Grace blog is more than just the name of a pet. There are so many beautiful definitions of Grace.

My favorite definition is: “disposition to or an act or instance of kindness, courtesy, or clemency.”

Even though Grace, the dog, passed away in late 2012, The idea of ‘Grace’ is still an inspiration for my updates. Whenever I’m in the garden, the presence Grace can still be felt and it’s wonderful to have other dogs and cats visit – they all migrate to Grace’s favorite spots. (You’ll see a painting of Grace on this page – it’s from a photo taken of her on my back patio after she dug up the clematis, and a few roses nearby – she fell fast asleep in her new hole!)

Update – 2017 – These days, I’ve been enjoying the search for opportunities to transition my corporate marketing & communications skills to my love of gardening. I recently became a member of GWA: The Association for Garden Communicators and I’ve been inspired to share even more of my gardening experiences with the world. This became especially important to me when I realized that readers from over 100 countries across the globe have read some of my gardening stories on this blog.

Feel free to provide your feedback on my stories and share some of your own experiences about how you Garden with Grace (however you define the word Grace.)