Mosaic Monday: In the Pink

For the Love of Pink 

Be sure to check out The Little Red House where I have entered
my mosaic in her Mosaic Monday

We love our pink, don't we?   My all time favorite color, I have dressed little girls in pink, painted bedrooms in pink, put up pink wall paper looking like pink dotted swiss with white daisies, worn pink, planted pink. If it's pink, I seldom stop to think. So naturally, I gravitate toward the beautiful pinks in the garden. In my old garden, I had a lovely miniature rose bush with the most delicate tiny pink roses. I treasured my pink David Austin roses, and my star shaped pink clematis was just becoming a prolific bloomer when we moved. And who doesn't love the beautifully simple and delicate cosmos, so sheer that we can almost see through the petals? The little vase dates back to my grandma, Abby Duston. She had a pair of these vases facing opposite direction; she called them Lizzie and Tizzie. Since my middle name is Elizabeth, she gave me Lizzie.

Abby Henry Duston: Flower Show Judge, Master Gardener, Grandmother

Abby Henry Duston

While the tiger lilies honor my husband's grandmother, mine, Abby Duston, taught me to love and respect the beauty in the garden. She was a certified flower show judge in Colorado, a real expert. I remember hearing her on the local Denver radio station one morning talking about gardening with another well-known Denver gardener who had his own radio show, Herb Gundel. Her love of flowers and the beauty that they bring inspired her to plant flowers along the roadside of highway 40 (Colfax), the main artery out of Denver in those pre-super highway days to Colorado's mountain resorts and the Western Slope. So dedicated to maintaining her roadside flowers, she and grandpa Duston even hauled water to the roadside flowers. Years after her death when I was in 5th grade (August 7, 1959), she was honored by having a roadside rest area dedicated in her honor,  located in one of the Blue Star Memorial Highway road-side parks. Read about the national Blue Star Highways and read more about Panoramic Park  in Lakewood, Colorado. (Note that grandma's name is spelled wrong--Duston, not Dunston) Highway 40 received designation as a Blue Star Memorial Highway to honor America's armed forces. 

I had fun one afternoon arranging the delicate pink roses and Shasta daisies in Lizzie's coif, creating a lovely  hat for her. I was so thrilled with the way the arrangement turned out that I took dozens of photos and finally settled one print to make little stationary notes.