What…we care about grass?

If my neighbor’s grass is greener than mine, all that tells me is that they’re using a ton of water and synthetic chemicals. Otherwise, we’d all have similarly hued grass. So is my neighbor opting to “outdo” us all with high water usage and poisons that season our water supply? Sounds like a one-two punch against the ingredients we all need to survive.

I had a front row seat to the Giant Scabious evolution. I couldn’t not see her, even in her minimus stage. But I seem to register her evolution more vividly than my own. I have grown along with her, especially as a mother and gardener. My foliage is lush, my buds are shooting up. Soon, I’ll flower.  I hope that I am rooted enough in the present to watch.

(Read the following in your best David Attenborough voice)

The gardener emerges from the backdoor after a long winter; she is hesitant to shed her outer layers. Her thin, pale skin will need time to strengthen and harden as the weather warms. It has been a long time since she enjoyed the warm sun on her skin.

In her pouch, she carries numerous packets of seeds. These will feed her mentally over the course of the next few months, until warm days are in earnest.  This early in the year, she can’t yet truly garden. But sowing these seeds will do the job, for now.

And so her seed sowing journey begins.

I finished the greenhouse just in time for the seed-sowing season. And with every trip to and from the greenhouse to squeal at new seedlings, I casually ignore the terra cotta pot full of unused parts I haven’t installed yet. 

It’s hard to fathom how the garden can play the role of therapist so efficiently. Should I drop $150 in the soil somewhere? It almost even feels like the garden is up to something illegal. Do I add another $75 for a little something extra? 

I like my garden beds like I like my human grass at the Bad Bunny half time show: tall, flowy, and living their best lives.

My front yard is many things right now, but it is not that.

While much of the US might approve, to my eyes it’s horrific. It’s short-cut grass. There’s one small circular bed where a tree used to be (now filled with hostas). The only redeeming feature is a large native Tilia americana (American basswood/linden).

Are plants better at weathermanning than a weatherman? Like how do they always know when to start growing?

Would a flower go to prom with another flower or a pollinator? 

When a worm wiggles in your hand, is it secretly just dancing to Bad Bunny?

Self-control is a tricky thing for me at a garden center.

The mania and the sense of stealth hunting doesn’t come from a conscious place. Did you ever see those 1990s news clips of Black Friday shoppers fighting over the last Tickle-Me-Elmo? I remember thinking they were unhinged.

Now I realize that’s me at the garden center.

Every time I cut flowers, I think of Marie Antoinette.

That’s what I’m doing, after all. I am literally beheading life. And somehow, we’re all perfectly comfortable with that. I realize this drifts into vaguely vegan granola territory, but stay with me.

It makes me sad. I bought this greenhouse when I was pregnant. We were both houses growing life together. When my husband and I moved back to Chicago to be closer to family, the greenhouse came with us. The long Midwestern winters didn’t feel quite as endless with my greenhouse friend. I remember friends stepping inside and remarking how much it “smelled like a greenhouse,” not realizing what high praise that was. In summer, when moths, butterflies, and bees sheltered there, it became a cozy hobbit hole for more than just me.

But between the shredded holes and ripped seams, it no longer functions as a real greenhouse. There’s too much ventilation and not enough warmth. Can I just leave it on life support? Is that any kind of life for a greenhouse? Unfortunately, it didn’t leave me end-of-life directives.

Join the great inconsequential debate!

All of this boils down to the classic “right plant, right place” methodology. Once you know your growing conditions, you can find the right plants to fit in.

But I think Goldilocks was onto something.  Not too hot, not too cold; not too hard, not too soft; not too poor, not too rich; not too hungry, not too full.  Somewhere in the middle, that’s humanity’s sweet spot

This is the Middle Garden, at least how it lives in Blog Form.