Earthly delights

I'm not a very good gardener, but I've never let that stop me. I should read up on soil types, ph levels, and how and when to fertilize. It's not that I'm lazy. It's that I'm a hopeless romantic.

I LOVE my garden. It's not very big, or a tidy, groomed garden. In fact I like it looking wild and a little messy. It feels more natural to me that way. I try not to interfere with nature if I don't have to. I do however, move things around if they look unhappy. Things die from time to time but other plants are so tenacious they inspire me with their sheer will to survive.

I dig out the worst of the weeds. Weeds don't bug me like they probably should. I remember asking the botanist at the museum his definition of a weed. He explained it commonly referred to hardy plants that take up residence and encroach where we don't want them to. He said "weed" was a relative term, that possibly anything you didn't want in your garden might be considered a weed.

Some "weeds" I have great fondness for. I bet I'm the only girl on the block with a tattoo of a bittersweet nightshade. A weed, that if you look close is delicately beautiful with it's purple flowers, yellow center and tiny brilliant green dots. It has berries that turn from green to yellow to orange then red, sometimes it has all of it's berry colors at once! Very pretty, but you have to look close and pay attention.
(Speaking of which, I'm referring to bittersweet nightshade not DEADLY nightshade. If you look online you can find too many tattoos labeled deadly nightshade when the reference used for the tattoo was the bittersweet variety. Oops! Therefore, I can further qualify my statement that I'm probably the only girl on the block with a bittersweet nightshade tattoo who intended on it!)

In Spring I venture out and poke around at the still cold ground and try to remember where things will eventually come up. I'm still out there nosing around in October when my fall flowers bloom and the cold nights turn the lilly foliage brilliant yellow. I love every moment, I watch and wonder at it all. See, hopeless romantic.

My garden will never win awards, or impress any serious garden club. That being said, maybe I'd have less inclination to paint plants if I were a better gardener! Sometimes knowing too much about how something works can take the magic away. I'm hopelessly in love with my wild, room-for-weeds garden, just as it is.