Cymax Hits the Great Outdoors

Summer is finally showing face around here. My flip-flops are out of storage, I’ve switched out my sweaters for tank tops and my pants for shorts in my dresser, and I’ve come to the conclusion that slowly, and not too surely, I am turning into my mother.

My mother’s garden is spectacular. She’s got everything from roses to irises to gladioli and about a hundred more flowers with names that I can’t pronounce. In the summer, she lives in the garden, watering each morning, pulling weeds, and trimming plants. When I still lived at home, I’d watch from inside, with my morning coffee, wanting none of it. When my parents went away when I was a teenager, I was put in charge of the plants, but the only thing I was good at was eating her cherry tomatoes off the vine. On her return, my mother toured her garden with a frown, assessing the damage. Remarkably, she had a knack for bringing back to life the plants I thought I’d slain for good. But regardless of my mother’s healing touch, I was the black thumb of the family.

Over a decade has passed since I’ve lived at my parents’ house, but this is the first summer I will be spending in a new home that I’ve only been living in since the fall. Impressed by the size of the deck, my mother called a few months ago to say she had a “few pots” for the new place. A few pots turned out to be about twenty five, and now the deck looks nothing short of a forest. A forest, full of annuals and perennials (I had to look up the difference between the two), that I have to keep alive.

So far, so good, I’m pleased to say. With the exception of a few snap dragons that are not living up to their strong, fierce name, and blue violets that have chosen to turn black, I’ve done pretty well. Well enough to show them off, even. But the plastic pots looked cheap and all the plants were positioned on the same level, so before I invited over any company, I gave my deck a make-over.

Cymax has brand new products for the outdoors, which suited my deck to a tee. With the convenience of online shopping, I was able to bring even more life to my patio. Without killing a thing, I uprooted and replanted my forest into quality H Potter Sonoma Planters, which are made of stunning stainless steel with a rustic copper finish that highlights my plants beautifully. Now, my flowers are displayed using different levels on artistic Alfresco Home Round Mosaic Plant Stands, which come in sets of two or three, and also on a multi-level Pangaea Victorian Iron Plant Stand. I even bought a garden wall trellis by Rustic Natural Cedar Co. for my honeysuckle, and to add that last touch of blissful summery ambience to my now favorite place in my home, I have a ceramic glazed water fountain.

My plants are thriving and I am very proud to say that I haven’t used an ounce of chemical fertilizer in my soil, but I have added 100% organic and biodegradable CocoLite Bricks, which are a natural alternative to peat moss. Although not a fertilizer, these bricks can be added to any potting soil to help retain moisture and nutrients in plants. I’d like to think the healthy state of my plants is solely a result of my newly obtained green thumb, but I know the soil has every bit as much to do with their success as I do.

So, the ambience of the deck is taken care of on a botanical level. It’s the rest of the deck that now needs work. In order to show off my floral successes, my next purchases will be more new products from Cymax, like a Pangaea Garden Torch to light up the deck for dinner parties, and patio furniture so that my guests can eat, drink, and relax in style. And because summer weather around here can be temperamental, and the evenings still get chilly, maybe even a patio heater.

But the most important part of a garden party? Food and drinks, of course. Cymax now sells outdoor grills, like the Napoleon Grills Prestige, that make summer cooking fun and easy, as you can spend your time with guests instead of running back and forth from the kitchen to your outdoor space. To complete your garden of bliss by keeping those summer ales cold, add the finishing touch of a beverage cooler, and I assure you, your guests will be satiated and delighted.

I am going away on vacation in a few days and have asked my mother to care for my plants while I’m gone. After her initial shock that my plants are still alive, she agreed. I wish I could be there to see her expression when she walks out on the deck. I have a feeling that she will be very, very pleased with me.

Miscellaneous Musings about Backyards, Hammocks and Dads

Now that my father is in his ninth decade, my sister and I try to show a little more attentiveness (translation: respect) whenever my Dad mentions his Father’s Day hammock, but in the past, since we have heard the story so many times, we have fallen into the bad habit of rolling our eyes, scrunching up our noses or crinkling our eyes in a gentle form of silent ribbing. Our father, as he likes to remind us, has never ever not once ever lain in the hammock that we gave him one Father’s Day many years ago.

I remember when my dad assembled the infamous hammock in the back yard, perfectly centered in the shade of our tallest crabapple tree. It came with an optional frame so that it could be hung in the traditional manner between two objects or on the frame itself so that it could be moved around like a lawn chair. And afterwards I remember spending many lazy summer days of book reading or cloud shape guessing in the hammock. My sister would take tanning breaks, lying in its comforting folds, swinging gently from side to side. Even mother would take a break—albeit a quick one as though she didn’t want to be caught slacking—from hanging the wash or weeding her favorite flower bed. What I don’t remember is my dad ever taking the hammock for a spin.

I must confess though, I do find it hard to believe that after he had spent the time putting it together, that he didn’t sit in it, lie back, test it out, just once to make sure that it wouldn’t collapse in a spectacular heap when one of his precious daughters was using it. But knowing my dad, the claim that he never used the hammock could be entirely true.

There’s a good reason that I am unable to visualize our dad in the hammock. For my father, the backyard was not a place to relax; for it to be the haven it was for the rest of us, for my dad it was a place of work. When he wasn’t mowing the lawn, he was trimming trees or planting flowers or working on some current project, like the summer he repainted the patio furniture. It seemed that he was always busy doing something: potting plants in the garage at his workbench, fixing something (toasters, bikes, the family car) or painting—indoor and out. Even when we were relaxing on the patio as a family, it was dad who fired up the barbecue, dad who cooked the burgers and dad who cleaned the grill.

My sister and I have heard my father tell the story of how he received a hammock for a present one Father’s Day that he never got to use so many times that I think we missed the point. We made funny faces while he told the story because we thought he was guilt-tripping us. Now I’m not so sure. Maybe he was bragging—the beautiful place my sister and I grew up and felt safe in was the direct result of his constant planning, vigilance and effort.

There is a saying that “A woman’s work is never done.” But I don’t think a dad’s is ever done either.

Happy Father’s Day from all of us at Cymax Stores.