Happy Birthday to Me and The Garden -- 2012 Edition

For a few years now I’ve gone all Walt Whitman and celebrated myself. It’s just my wife and cats here, and the garden, so the blog is party central. Yee ha.

And as is customary for the next year, a wish list:

1) 100 acres of prairie with a mid-century modern home, solar panels, wind turbine, off the grid, walled veg garden.
2) To have completed Turkey Red, my Oklahoma memoir, and found a press for it.
2.5) To have found a home for the other memoirs, Morning Glory and Sleep, Creep, Leap, both garden related.
3) To have found a university teaching job (here’s my CV). I love teaching. I love learning. I love connecting with students (hopefully over four years and not just one class!). The life of the mind and mad-texting youngins keeps me on my toes.

So, on to the tour. The garden is 5, and I am significantly older and less wiser each year. The biggest problem in the garden this year has been the heat, plants a month ahead of schedule, and watering months earlier than I normally do. But also that I want to redo the garden. I think it looks too hodge podgey, and I wished I’d planted more prairie grasses and less iris. Please come take my iris. Surprisingly, the red monarda that had taken over is being beaten back by natives. Who’d have thought. Hey, did you see that alliteration?

Looking toward the garden gate

The weeping bald cypress is back!

Side garden

Clematis wilt on C. virginiana I guess. Grrr.

Just past the arbor into the main garden

Step to the right

Step to the left

Aster yellows on steroids. Time to remove this coneflower.

I ADORE coneflowers. And not those nasty cultivars, but species.

On the back hill

Culver’s root — #1 insect magnet right now

Love the tall Rudbeckia subtomentosa

Spotted balloon flower

Marsh phlox–the only phlox I allow here

Liatris ligulistylis–aka monarch magnet

Liatris, and where are the monarchs? In Canada.

Thus concludes another year. Please, no gifts (please do send many gifts). I’d love to hear suggestions on my garden (I wouldn’t dare if I were you). Insist that you see no gray in my beard hair (please insist that you see no gray in my beard hair).

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