As stated in my last post, I am pairing gardening with murder in the new novel series I have started to write. I have now written 7,500 words, and the first chapter is below.
However, before diving into it, let's discuss the beautiful aster. Here are some facts and tips for planting them:
- Asters are known for up to 600 species, but there are mainly two best known in North America: New England and New York, with the latter growing to 4 feet tall with a thicker stem and textured leaves.
- The Aster is a sunflower family member, even though they can be mistaken for daises, and their yellow centers are clusters of mini flowers called florets.
- In ancient times, asters were burned to ward off negative energy and used for headaches, muscle aches, and colds.
- Asters have been used to mark the passing of a loved one but are also associated with patience, good luck, love, and feminine energy.
These star-shaped flowers bloom in spring and fall in colors from soft blues to fiery reds. They like full sun to part shade in zones 3-8 and can grow anywhere from 1-8 feet. They attract pollinators like crazy and love to be paired with coneflowers and hydrangeas. Ensure they have moderate water, well-drained soil, and look out for aphids, slugs, snails, and lace bugs.
Plant about 18 inches to 2 feet apart to give them plenty of room to grow. Fertilize in spring and early summer, but don't overfeed them.
Okay ... now delve into the murder mystery starring Patrice Summers. And please, give me your honest feedback on the chapters. You are my readers, and I need constructive criticism if I am to make this series successful.
Chapter One: Gone in a Split Second
I wasn’t always a green thumb. It took years of watching my parents, learning from them, mimicking some of their habits, and then developing my own - a lot of tests, failures, and, yes, much success too. But after years of planting thousands of flowers, herbs, vegetables, and fruits, I had a pretty good knack for gardening.
But I know some people with the brownest thumb ever; still, my neighbors seem to have some nice gardens.
So, it wasn’t entirely odd as I strolled down the sidewalk for my daily walk with my mutt, Hercules, you know, patterned after the buff mythical legend, that I noticed a large hump in the front of my neighbor’s yard that used to house about 3-foot tall, gorgeous deep purple asters that bloom in the spring and early fall.
New buds were just starting to form for Autumn. However, all you could see was a large mound of dirt now, while everything else around it was full of perennials, like Dahlias (my favorite), Echinacea, Lilies, and David Austin Roses – breathtaking and aromatic ones that you have to bend over and smell, even if it makes you look like a loon.
I could think of a million reasons why the asters that I helped plant were missing: the plants bit the dust (they were looking a little sad the last few days), and Mrs. Carmichael plucked it out and just left the dirt for future planting. A gopher or vole decided to take up residence and dug their way to China. This year, They were particularly bad with all the home-building in our neighborhood. Or, their mangy mutt, Pickles, dug up a bone he had hidden and then covered up his tracks.
I didn’t think anything more of it, eager to get my walk in before the heat of Utah’s summer snuck up on us. I call it Bipolar Utah because one minute it’s sunny and hot, and the next, the wind is howling, the rain is barreling down on you, and the temps drop 15 degrees – in July. Or it’s snowy in January, and a week later, an Indian summer hits, and the temps rise 15 degrees. It’s just weird and something you can’t predict.
Still, something makes me slow my steps as I walk by, and I see the two-story white brick home, with cerulean blue shutters and door and closed white blinds to be devoid of any life. Typically, I observe Deanna Carmichael out tending to her garden or mowing the lawn. Her boxwood shrubs line her fence that borders mine, and some huge variegated yellow and white hostas frame her bay window. Our homes face the north, which is perfect for the perennials, as they like shade.
Her home is beautiful and bigger than mine, but her yard is smaller, and mine isn’t. She wanted height, whereas I wanted length. Our house is still two stories, but we have more acreage to work with, particularly because we are the last house on the street.
I have several gardens in my backyard, with a few smaller gardens in the front fenced yard. The red Asiatic lilies form a nice border along the west side fence with yellow Gaillardia tucked underneath them. On the other side, tall boxwoods line the fence. In front of our basement-level window are golden elderberries forming a privacy hedge and trailing around to the side. Depending on my mood, I may grow some annuals or plant some tulips and daffodil bulbs underneath. My goal was to have a 3-season garden, and I accomplished it.
It's not too early as I glance down at my Apple watch that reads 8:10 AM. Usually, the kids ride their bikes down the street with the four-year-old on her tricycle on the sidewalk, trying to keep up with them. She has three kids, two rowdy boys named Cory and Baxter, who are 8 and 11, close to the same ages as my grandkids, and “princess” Melanie, to which the strawberry blond, blue-eyed, and dotted freckles refers to herself. Her ex-husband, Aaron, left them two years ago for his therapist – yes, you heard that right – therapist.
Melanie was a year old.
Snapping back to reality, I was making too much of it. They could have gone on late summer vacation before the kids returned to school in a few weeks, to the park, or even up to one of our beautiful lakes. Trice, you gotta stop watching so much true crime at night; I scold myself, which I often do when my vivid imagination runs wild.
My nickname has stuck with me throughout my life, and even though my legal name is Patrice, people still call me Trice. As long as they don’t call me “Pat,” I’m good. That just seems like such a boring name with no life or adventure. Still, my maiden name isn’t all that glamorous – Patrice Lockhart. When I got married, it wasn’t all that much different – Patrice Summers.
Still, I’m known as “The Gardening Guru of Grantsville” on my YouTube channel. I’d say it’s a successful video series on gardening, with 345,000 subscribers, which is not nearly as many as some channels, but I’ll take it. At first, it was just some gardening tutorials for my kids and something my grandkids could look back on and tell their friends or spouses that their grandma was a YouTube star. But then I started to get followers and then more. That was three years ago. My goal is to hit 500,000 by the end of summer. Between that and gardening, I also have a small marketing consultant business.
The city is in northeast Utah and isn’t known for much, except for many farmlands and newly developed homes that started exploding in the last twenty years. On second thought, it’s not really a small town anymore. My neighborhood was part of that explosion, even though I grew up here just a mile or so down the road. When my husband, Brock, and I decided to set down roots with our three monsters, Eric, Josh, and Ian, we wanted a safe place where boys could be boys but still keep a close eye on them so they didn’t terrorize the neighborhood.
They’re grown and left the nest now with families of their own. Eric is married to Sirena and with four kids of their own – three boy triplets - and one girl (Heaven help her). Josh is married to Samantha, and they have two kids, a boy, Sam, and a girl, Jessie (Jessica), and Ian and Stephanie (yes, all three of my daughters-in-law have S names) have just the one – for now – little Clarise, yes, the same name from the movie Silence of the Lambs. It was my son’s favorite movie, which I thought was odd, and even more odd that he would name his firstborn girl after Jodi Foster’s character of the same name.
Still, I loved how much acreage was here; it allowed me to experiment with my gardening and have plenty of area for the grandkids to play after me, and Brock spoiled them with a playground that even my kids never had. Plus, I didn’t have to worry about the Homeowners Association (HOA) breathing down my neck on how many plants I could put in or that my lawns had to be mowed a certain way or length. No, this was under my control and no one else’s.
My gardening has been a passion for the last 30 years, and as my mother used to say, “It’s a labor of love, emphasis on labor.” She’s not wrong. Gardening is hard, but the rewards of seeing a colorful display of perennials and annuals hugging my bay window and snaking around to the side of my home, plus twin gardens that marked our pathway to the front door, were always aesthetically pleasing to anyone walking or driving by. On more than a few occasions, while I was out, I had people stop by on their walk and remark how beautiful our yard was, particularly my roses. I chose the best of the best – David Austin – which is probably why our neighbors put some in with my insistence.
I beamed with pride that day.
It was a balmy Wednesday morning, the air still cool and crisp. This year, the summer temps got to over 100 several times, which isn’t that unusual for our area, but it happened in early July, which doesn’t happen until the end or even into August, so the local meteorologist dubbed it a “heat wave.” Now that we’re in the middle of August, it’s still hot, but not nearly as hot.
Some of my flowers loved the heat, while others needed tons of water and some shade to survive. Luckily, my tomatoes, peppers, onions, cucumbers, and zucchini in backyard raised beds were loving it.
I hear the distant sound of doves as I round the corner. The breeze starts to pick up, and a few clouds obscure the sun allowing for a brief reprieve from the heat.
It’s been almost an hour, and the sun beats down on me, the sweat prickling my neck and forehead. I try to powerwalk at least half of my daily walk to get the fat-burning effects, and so far, it’s paying off. According to my Apple watch, I’ve lost 6 lbs. in the last two months, averaging around 5,000-8,000 steps daily.
I couldn’t very well blame it on the baby fat since I haven’t had any babies for decades, but the dreaded “M” my mother used to call it has arrived, and it’s the pits. I’m either hot flashing several times a day or drenched in sweat at night, tossing and turning to get comfortable. Thankfully, Brock sleeps like the dead and is typically up late doing casework in the kitchen before crashing on the couch most nights.
He has a large, high-profile case coming up that would make his firm millions.
Brock and I will celebrate our 35th anniversary next month while he’s in court. Yep, he’s a defense attorney and a damn good one at that. He works for one of the largest firms in Salt Lake City, making the nearly 45-minute drive into the city daily. When he comes home, he’s mentally tired, but he still manages to play with Eric’s kids, whom I watch twice a week in the summer, while his wife has a part-time job at the local farmer's market.
He’s a whiz at grilling, so in the summer, we eat burgers, hotdogs, chicken, steaks, and his favorite, baby back ribs smothered in smoky barbecue sauce. Our yard smells like a steak restaurant nearly every day. Some weekends we host a barbecue for the street. The young and old women swoon over his cooking skills, and the men are jealous of them.
I do a loop with my walk, going down about ten blocks and then turning back and returning in the opposite direction. This is three days a week; the other three days, I go to the opposite side of the neighborhood for some change in scenery.
I take Sundays off.
This time, I decide to come back the way I came. Hercules had already marked his territory on every post, fire hydrant, and bush he could find, and his slowing down and panting told me he was tired. He was getting on in years as I was and would turn ten at the end of the year. Still, the vet said to take him for daily walks to ensure he stayed fit. He should live longer than a purebred because he’s part Blue Heeler and German Shepherd.
As I cross the street and head home, I pick up my speed, making the last stride with a renewed energy burst. However, when I hit our street, I stop in my tracks and stare. Whatever burst I had was gone in a split second.
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