Tips on How to Spruce Up Your Spring Garden

Coming from a tropical country, spring has become my favorite season in Texas. I arrived in the beginning of a very cold, drab, and dreary winter, which automatically froze my aging bones and muscles. Thus, when spring came, it meant life may once again begin, this time, with a visit to Trader’s Village.

Trader’s Village is in Grand Prairie, Texas (https://tradersvillage.com/grand-prairie/). My gracious hosts, the sweet couple, Tita Marj and Tito Renner, remembered to bring me with them because they were starting to spruce up their garden. And the best place to go was Trader’s Village.

Booth with flowering plants at the entrance.

Tita Marj, beautiful as the flowers beside her.

Upon going inside, we chanced upon this booth (above) selling these beautiful plants in bloom. They came in all varieties and colors. The price for a small flowering pot was $1. I wanted to entice Trina to buy for her garden, so I bought a few small ones (below).

Tita Marj is a serious flower enthusiast, so she opted for the bigger ones. The pink hydrangeas (below) are now in her son’s garden. Trina, on the other hand, bought the purple hydrangea (below) when we came back a couple of weeks later (below).

I learned in this trip that the number one tip is: bring the hubby; he is your best ally in bringing all the goodies. Tip number two is bring the tools in shopping: boxes to fit in the plants, and your own trolley, so as not to make your shopping difficult for hubby. 

Tito Ren, our best buddy wherever Tita Marj and I went.

Some of the flowering plants that we bought are found in Tita Marj’s garden (below).

By the way, Trader’s Village is 160 acres of stores where you can buy anything, specially, those in season. In fact, we found more plant booths selling the same variety of plants at a lower cost. Tip number three, do not mind walking a little bit for cheaper plants.

After shopping, you could enjoy the different rides (below) that would thrill, excite, or scare you. Choose your type of adventure. There were also food stalls that offered a variety of meals to satisfy your craving.

Speaking of food, we said goodbye to Trader’s Village after buying our plants and went to a Filipino restaurant, instead, for lunch.

We visited Kizyen (above) in Arlington, Texas, a few minutes away from Trader’s Village . Kizyen is where Filipinos and Americans eat their favorite home-cooked meals, if they cannot home-cook. All those in the buffet tasted so good, you’d wish you could eat here again and again.

They offered the following famous Filipino dishes: menudo, adobo, sinigang, bulalo, bistek (beef in soy sauce), kare-kare (peanut stew), fried chicken, and pakbet.

The 'best sellers' were barbecue, lechon kawali, steamed shrimp, and pork chop. Proof was that they were the first to disappear from the line. I also enjoyed their desert. Also in the menu was halo-halo if your tummy could accommodate more after all those yummy dishes.

After a couple of weeks, I brought Trina and her family to Kizyen because I knew they would like it, too.  Of course, they came and liked it and came back, a second time.