@unk-p If you love Kingsolver, besides Animal, Vegetable Mineral, is Flight Behavior, a novel about climate change. I loved it so much, I read it twice.
@jeanne-mayell Yes. Kingsolver is so funny and cool, even as she writes about really important things. I wish i knew her in real life, and we could just hang out and talk. I guess i will just have to read all of her books instead!
@claire and @deetoo i once lived in a rent house with a patchy, mostly dead lawn. So i planted wildflowers, and native plants, and young trees, which took over. Then, a neighbor starting complaining that i needed to cut my lawn. I invited him over, and told him that it was not a "lawn", it was a meadow. I pulled a pair of scissors out of my pocket, and told him to show me where there was any lawngrass, and i would cut it right now. He gave up. Later, i heard him telling his wife that he could tell that i was never gonna cut my yard, because "just look at his ha-yer!" ha!
@unk-p, I like your attitude! Who cares about lawn grass when you have a meadow? You can only feel sorry for the guy who has no vision other than what is locked so tightly in his own mind. The world would be a boring place in that case. My neighbor loves his lawnmower. In fact, he mows twice a week. I don’t know what he is mowing exactly, but it never lasts long and I guess makes him look like he’s doing something. I don’t think his garden is very interesting, but it IS heavily manicured. He also has Mosquito Joe come a couple times a month to poison his yard. I guess he doesn’t realize mosquito larvae is food for the fish in my pond, and I am not adding to his “problem”. I don’t know why he has mosquitoes, because I don’t. He obviously doesn’t know that running a fan outside is a non-toxic way of keeping them out of your sphere. To each his own I guess!
What a great forum topic!!
I grow everything from radishes to rhubarb. There is something immensely satisfying about harvesting your own stuff. Sometimes it gets tiring battling the wildlife for it, but I put out peace offerings in the form of corn cobs and seed and lettuce, which they mostly ignore because they prefer harvesting it themselves as well.
I like neither completely manicured gardens nor full-blown English gardens. The first is too Edward Scissorhands subdivision and the latter is too wild for my touch of OCD, so I have a mix. Foxglove, delphiniums and snapdragons (#1 favorite!) are beautiful, along with the neater marigolds, geraniums, daisies. Not a huge fan of pansies unless they are really unusual, like the deep purple kind with white dots. Don't like bulbs of any kind. Gorgeous while freshly blooming but scraggly after.
I have an obsession with cucumber plants. They are challenging to grow while keeping them bug and fungus-free, and getting them to produce fruit that isn't bitter. It would be way easier to buy them but I don't back down from a fight. LOL
posted by @unk-p:
I heard him telling his wife that he could tell that i was never gonna cut my yard, because "just look at his ha-yer!"
@unk-p, You made me laugh this morning, and I really needed it. Thank you.
Growing up in the city I didn't have to deal with lawns, which might be partly why I find a lot of suburbia too confining and "Edward Scissorhands subdivision" (thank you, @Polarberry!) for me. I sort of equate the hustle and bustle of city life -- and specifically, the funkiness of Baltimore, which is where I grew up -- with the rich, wild, and beautiful natural works of art that you and @claire have created.
Our front lawn is not that big and is predominantly weeds, which gets a weekly mow. It's very humid out today and I just came in from pulling up a ton of toadstools. If I could, I’d remove ¾ of the lawn and just add different vegetation and trees. I’m not sure what our town’s restrictions might be, or if there are any. Fortunately, there is no homeowners association to deal with.
Ever notice that men wait until the hottest part of the day to mow? I asked my husband about this and he says, "it's gotta get done!" Yes, OK, but why does it "gotta get done" at high noon?
I'd ask Unk, but, he just says no to the mow.
@deetoo i hear you about suburbs. My little jungle is in the inner-city, so the best (for me) of both worlds! Even when i lived in the middle of San Francisco, i was lucky enough to have a back yard, which i filled w giant tree-ferns, bromeliads, and all kinds of stuff.
The meadow yard was in Texas, and the neighbor guy had probably never seen anyone w Nyabinghi style dreadlocks down to his knees before. Nowadays i just rock male-pattern baldness lol
@polarberry ...no to the mow.
HA! i love that! gotta put that on a t shirt!
Snapdragons, Dels and Foxgloves are so pretty and some of my very favorites as well ... the jewel-toned varieties that they are available in is remarkable. The deep velvety red black snaps are wow....
It's suprising that no one has mentioned lavenders, sage or the fantastic world of herb gardening so far... there are so, so many culinary and medicinal herbs that are easy to grow and the rewards of this are like ... a holy blessing!
The fragrances, the textures, the beauty of herbal plants and the myriad of uses they gift us with ..it's like nothing else to experience growing these delights in the garden and being able to cook with them as well as make medicine and potpourri's and soaps and the list goes on ...
More nurseries are stocking the young baby plants now so they don't have to be grown from seed, and herbs thrive naturally if they like the location ... also are easy to grow in containers on a patio or porch or deck if enough sun falls on them, as that brings their oils up into the leaves.
Yes, I'm in love...with herbs. ?
Oh My, @polarberry, YES! The hottest part of the day, Every Time. It reminds me when my dad would come in from a stint outside with his mower, his fair Scottish skin red as a beet. That, or he would be out in a thunderstorm sweeping rainwater off his porch, with lightning cracking all around. “It Has to be Done!”
@unk-p, I would have loved you for your hay-er, either way, AND your Texas meadow. Last time I was in Texas, I brought home three small Mexican Honeysuckles. They are finally big enough to bloom this year. I got them to complement the Firebushes I overwinter every year for the hummers. Those Firebushes are 20 years old now, and one of my favorites.
@deetoo, Do It! Replace that weedy grass with something else. Native grasses anyone? Those fabulous seed heads are stunning, even in the winter months. You will love it, and the lack of maintenance will have you wondering what took so long. My Northern Sea Oats grows in shade or sun, between roots of a maple tree or clay soil. What started as about 8 plants has turned into a 15’x40’ border next to the street. It is glorious. I have had people knock on my front door to ask about it. The seed heads begin in summer and stay through to the middle of winter. They rustle and blow in the wind. I’m their biggest fan.
I wanted to qualify I do have my share of weeds, which I cannot get hung about. After all, a weed is only a misplaced flower. I found a dried pod of elegant White Datura seeds one fall in a vacant gas station parking lot and scattered them on my street corner, which prompted some weed seed envy among my neighbors. Now I save them in the fall for any one who wants some. Some of my favorites are the wild ones because they are native. Wild and Free!
Yes, @polarberry, I am with you right there in the herb garden. i always grow two Lemon Verbenas, and use them for making flavored water during the season, or a leaf in a cup of tea. Dill, basil, tarragon, thyme, parsley and oregano. No garden is complete without the herbs. I keep trying to grow a Meyer Lemon tree, always getting one lemon every year. I am doing something wrong...that lemon is always precious.
i used to plant snapdragons, larkspur and foxglove (with other things) in a cottage garden style near my front door. I don’t have the right soil or climate for lavender, and replaced all the others with zinnias, firebushes and milkweed. From Cottage to Prairie style, I guess, as I live where the wind blows. Go native!
Claire, I didn't post anything about herbs, but I was planning to later, as I am in the process of doing this year's plantings. Did you sense that I was thinking about herbs and posting about them? Weird.
I love zinnias; they're a favorite also. Dahlias, too, but they always freeze on me.
@claire that sounds amazing! You should take some pics.
I found a very easy way to convert lawn (and weed) areas to planting beds:
You don't have to pull anything up- just cover over the lawn with about 4 sheets of newspaper (try to only use black and white pages, because of the dyes in the colors), and then cover the newspaper with a couple of inches of compost. Wait a few weeks, and then it is ready to plant. With this method, the grasses and weeds die and get recycled back into the soil. Also the soil structure won't be disturbed, and the newspaper will decompose. Easy breezy
@unk-p, we used to do that when we lived on a farm we rented, early in my newly married life. There was a film going around the public library, called Ruth Stout’s garden. Do you know it? That was the year my husband was able to buy tomato plants at the nursery at the same price they were when the nursery first opened. Decades Before. He brought home 400 tiny little tomato plants which we planted in the old feedlot. I was overwhelmed. That was the year we bought a whole lot of hose, and a wheelbarrow. Not the best foray into beginning gardening I would say!
I will take pictures when the bloom happens. Figuring out how to post them will be another matter. Do you have tips?
@polarberry, I confused you with @stargazer who I now see was responding to you. (I am seeing this happen to me a lot, and apologize for myself.). I find myself doing anything to keep the conversation going!
@stargazer, i used to love to grow Lambs-ear, and had it as a border for my flowerbeds, one of which held Stargazer lilies. I liked it because it was silvery grey and showed up at night so I wouldn’t go tramping in the beds. It seemed like I tried everything when we first moved here. I found as I went along I needed to plan for less and less maintenance, so the scale for herbs and flowers grew smaller, while the trees and shrubs grew into that space instead.
@claire that's a lot of tomatoes!
As for pics, the only way i know how is to send them from the phone to the email, then save them to a file, and then i can post them. But i am sure there must be an easier, more direct way. Maybe someone else on here can tell us?
Yes, beautiful sagey silvery lambs ear, Claire... it's nice to touch isn't it, it has a sweet soothing quality too.
You know, I've had some success just throwing alot of herbs out there and they naturalize among rocks and with poor sandy soil (makes the oils push up into the leaves) in the full sunshine. No real maintenance required except for needing to be cut back about a third down when mature, and that's when we get the good stuff (like the edible flowers for salads)?
I love the Stargazer lilies... the scent is luscious too, and wish I could grow some! Too much shade where I am at present...drats.
Wildflowers are rewarding, if you plant for the local zone you are in, they take care of themselves and reseed too.... ?
(I am loving this new thread (thank you unk!) and it's healing earth focus ... it's a kind way to detox from all the political and viral and emotional stresses isn't it ? We must focus on the sweetness of life at times to stay sane.... )))
Gorgeous! My favorite color of petunias! Cheerful and full of the heart energy of love and loving life.
Perfect for you as you are now filled with those wonderful energies instead of the old ones of fear and worry. Now you are all lit up with the best of loving, giving, and sharing goodness!
Love this part of you and all the amazing and transforming energies that you are now so filled up with. Awesome for you and for your precious son and family ?