Plant Day
I took a field trip with a friend yesterday. We tromped through the woods. Talked about plants. Talked about trees. And talked about birds. Entirely satisfying. Then his wife cooked a lovely lunch, and we sat on his porch and looked at more trees and plants and birds. One of the birds was a screech owl which is not something you typically see at lunch. It was sitting in its nest box watching us.
My friend shared some plant samples with me, and I now have inland sea oats, buttonbush, Blanco crabapple, and Damianita potted and waiting to maybe find a home at my place. I’m cautiously optimistic. Most are sitting close to the rain barrel for a handy drink when needed and I’m going to give them a chance to get their roots down and get established. I put the sea oats in the ground because it’s grass, it’s a hardy species, and I had good soil around its root balls.
Obviously, you can build a garden by buying plants at a nursery, and I do that, but I like found plants best of all. The ones I dig up, the ones grown from seed, the ones people give me. The ones with stories behind them. Feral plants. Like my cats. We live together, but it’s a mutual aid society. We know we could go it alone, but the company is nice and expectations are low. It’s a loose coalition built on need. And it’s working, just like my hodgepodge gardens.