Happy Birthday Dad

May 1st would have been my father's 77th birthday. I remember him telling me how he loved having his birthday on May Day. As a young boy in Germany, May Day was always a wonderful celebration day.

Dad loved to be outside, he would take us hiking, sledding, skating, berry picking, wandering, beach combing, anything he could think of as long as it was outside.

He died when he was 70 years old and after he passed away friends of mine gave me this beautiful tree to plant in his memory. The tree is an Acer shirasawanum 'Aureum' which is also known as a Moon Maple. I love this tree more than anything else in my garden.

Tonight I spent an hour looking at old digital photos. It seems that Dad's tree usually unfurled it's leaves during the last week of April. It's grown quite a bit since this photo in 2005.

Planted around Dad's tree is a wonderful array of Hosta and shade plants.

Since Dad always had a great sense of humor, this bowling ball and matching shoes were moved from the other side of the garden to rest now under Dad's tree.

This year the most amazing thing happened. The leaves on Dad's tree unfurled on May first, Dad's birthday! I couldn't help but smile all day as I realized that Dad was in the garden with me again.

Happy Birthday Dad, hope you don't mind this post is a bit late, I was busy spending time in the garden :-)

Melanie