Saturday, July 31, 2021

A different way of gardening

"If you want to attract wildlife into your garden, and increasingly most of us do, the key thing is you've to abandon trying to control every aspect of your garden and that will allow wildlife in." 
Monty Don on Gardeners' World.

This is a quote from a recent show, but he has been talking about this subject for years now. And we have followed his example. 

I expect most men just love to mow. I know that Tom always did. But he has had a sea change in his view. He no longer mows any of the lawns every week. In England this past May was "no mow May". At Windy Poplars Farm, it might be called "mow once in a while in May, June, July, August". And you should see the results. Both red and white clover, little white flowers I don't even know the name of, daisies, hawkweed, dandelions, Achillea/yarrow have all grown and prospered. We have seen bees and other bugs on them. When Tom does mow he leaves whatever is still in bloom. Along the edge of one garden a whole row of achillea grew; a real row - as if we had planted it. 

Another benefit is that when it is dry, as it was here early in the summer, the grass stays much greener. 

We shake our heads in pure delight at this change in our yard. The big fields are mowed only once a year at the end of the summer. When we had more animals we used to bring them into the other fields, but with only 8 sheep and a donkey, the barn pasture is plenty so we let those other pastures become fields loaded with all kinds of plants. Along our road/driveway are tansy, goldenrod, meadowsweet, brown-eyed Susan, buttercups. 

It is a veritable garden of Eden here now. In addition to all these wildflowers, a couple years ago we planted echinacea, monarda, perennial hollyhocks, and achillea milleflora in the terrace garden, and the butterflies and bees are plentiful. I left the flowers on the catnip plant and it is full of bees every day. There is a wild garden off the side yard where there are lupines and comfrey and globe thistle, and loads of milkweed. 

"Wildlife" has quite a different meaning to the people on Gardeners' World and people who live where we live in northern New England. It is not the bees and butterflies and other flying pollinators. Our wildlife is deer and coyotes and black bears. We've had them all visiting this spring and summer. The coyote only once. It was the biggest one I've ever seen. It was just looking into the pasture. I opened the door and said it should probably leave now, and it did. A mother and her two fawns come and eat from the garden most evenings, and they haven't done much harm. I don't begrudge them anything really because I am happy they come by. We also had a young bear early in the season. Just saw one the other evening and wondered if it is the same one, only bigger. There have been birds nesting, and the wild turkeys with their chicks. 

Possibly (probably) because of climate change, we've seen tomato plants pop up all over the garden from last year's tomatoes. Also potato plants and, just like last year, the calendulas have returned. Mallow has come back in grand fashion after being away for a few years, and the hollyhock in the patio garden appeared. 

The gardens and animals have been such a source of comfort and deep joy during this kinda still in the pandemic time, and also some family situations that have taken up a lot of time and emotion. Very, very thankful. I wanted to put up pictures today, but just didn't have the time. I'll try and do that soon.

28 comments:

  1. Love this, Nan! Thought achillea was yarrow, but looked it up - yes! The wild is white; is that what yours is? Just wonderful - photos would be great.
    Good for you and Tom!

    Mary

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    1. Yes, the wild is white. It grows all over the place. The stuff we bought is yellow, and red.
      And thank you for your words, as always.

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  2. Congratulations! It sounds beautiful and as you mention, provides "comfort and deep joy." Yes, I want the butterflies and bees, but other insects are important, too.

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    1. Yes, there are loads of others. I just don't know their names. Happy to be feeding them, though.

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  3. A lovely post, I so envy all of the wildlife visiting you but, I'm sure if I lived when you do I'd be afraid to wander out in fear of running in to a hungry bear LOL

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    1. Thank you.
      The bear wouldn't be hungry for you! haha. Black bears hardly ever attack. They are mostly in the woods. I think you might have seen the igram pic of it on our porch? Anyhow, I am going to put it up in another post.

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  4. I love your description of your lawns and how they are full of wildflowers now. It all sounds so beautiful. And the wild life visiting too. I would love to see pictures when you have the time. I am enjoying gardening this year, but our "yard" is about 1/1000th the size of yours and is still a lot of work for me.

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    1. It is less work without mowing and weeding too much. Hahaha.
      Thank you.

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  5. It's wonderful to read this. I've seen a few gardens where the habit of not mowing in May has spilled over into June and July, with just winding pathways cut through lawns. I remember when I was young seeing a garden that was full of wild flowers, my father explained that the man who lived there cut it once a year for hay - with a scythe.

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    1. I love those "winding pathways". The first time I ever saw one was an older lady's garden over 40 years ago. She was ahead of her time.
      What a nice memory that is. I know scythes are not easy to use, but they make such a nice sound and I love the look afterward.

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  6. I think we’re kindred spirits! I do the same. My garden in Shropshire is gradually gaining in wildflowers while the mowing is becoming more and more selective. Diversity is everything x Deb (herbalgirl on Instagram)

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    1. The pictures I have seen look like it is paradise. So, so beautiful.

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  7. As I live in a town or city of just under 100,000 inhabitants, wildlife here differs somewhat from yours - but there is still a surprisingly lot of it. We get foxes and hares, rabbits and weasels, red squirrels and of course rats, moles and mice, birds and bees and butterflies and so on.
    Some years ago, a new regulation was passed that prescribes farmers to dedicate a certain proportion of their land to wildflower meadows, usually in the shape of narrow strips along their large fields. Not only does that look really pretty, it also helps with biodiversity.
    I am looking forward to the pictures you meant to go with this post!

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    1. That is terrific about the wildflower meadows. I wish that happened on the big farms in this country.
      I like all your animal visitors except weasels and rats. I hate to even write the words. haha

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  8. I love this post! I can just picture all the beautiful plants and the happy buzzing bees! We have an area next to and behind the garage that is need of weeding, but I look at some of those weeds and think they're rather pretty and the bees like them, so I'll wait until later in the year to pull them out.

    I'm also very happy to see that your header fills the entire page! Did you follow my directions or has Blogger fixed the problem? I'm afraid to change mine!

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    1. Thank you! I love it that you are leaving some weeds. I just heard on an older English TV show, The Cafe, "Weeds are flowers whose virtues have never been discovered". Great, huh!
      And Blogger did it all by its little self. Actually, I tried another picture, and it was bigger but not right, so I tried this one, and voila! Thanks for noticing.

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  9. This really sounds wonderful, Nan. You are so blessed to have the space, the energy, and the good sense to approach your gardening and land management this way. The animals must really love it.

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    1. Thank you. We were lucky when we bought our place. Prices were low then. I do have space and "good sense" but the energy comes and goes. haha. I've also got a bad knee from a car accident 58 years ago (yesterday as a matter of fact), and it is hard to get down to do much on the ground gardening but luckily once things are planted, it is mostly standing up! Hope you are having a blast on your trip!

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  10. I love that you have so many different wild animals coming in close to your home. We are in a suburb of St. Louis where no one lets their grass grow longer than a week. But in the past five years or so we are getting all kinds of animals that were never around here before. I've been seeing foxes around, and one time heard one doing some sort of strange call that sounded like a baby crying, all along a sort of creek drainage area behind a line of trees just a about 1/2 block from my front porch. The sound moved all along the drainage area until it finally stopped. It was about 4:30 in the morning. At first I thought someone was carrying a crying baby, but I realized that didn't make any sense at that time of morning, and as it got closer it didn't sound exactly like a baby. I googled the sound and I discovered it was a certain call that female foxes make sometimes. We have a lot of possums, raccoons, occasionally a deer, and skunks (unfortunately). I am sure there are coyotes, I have seen them in other nearby neighborhoods. I think one time I saw 3 wolves about 1/4 mile from our house. They were in a very wooded area of an office park at the edge of the road. I thought they were coyotes at first, but as I looked closer, I noticed that they weren't moving in a slinky manner and they were much larger than the coyotes that I have seen and their legs were heavier boned than the coyotes which have a little bit more spindly legs. My theory is that the wildlife follows the railway right of ways which go directly through the Missouri River bottoms up to an area near our subdivision, though we live about 20 minutes from the Missouri river by highway. We get the occasional deer around here during hunting season. I think they are hiding from hunters by coming into the neighborhoods where people aren't hunting them.

    People are seeing occasional bears here in the St Louis area in some of the subdivisions that are not near mine. I might get a little scared if I was outside and a bear showed up, just because I haven't any real experience with how they act.

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    1. Thank you for telling me all this!!!! Wolves. So many people long for them to be back. And some think they have seen them. I don't know if they mate with coyotes or not. I should do some research. I'm happy we don't, so far, have skunks. We had them years ago. I wonder where they went. No raccoons either. Smart deer. Every year I say a little prayer when I see "our" deer after the season ends. In fact, that was in my first blog entry back in 2006 before hunting began.

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  11. The descriptions of your garden remind me of Elizabeth Goudge, an author I am sure you have read! Unfortunately, mine has been quite neglected this summer and the weeds have taken over. Next year I think I need a professional to do a spring cleanup and pruning for me.

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    1. As I wrote above to my friend Les, a quote I heard on The Cafe - Weeds are flowers whose virtues have never been discovered! In the past couple years I have come to love what I'm sure most people think of as a weed called Lady's Bedstraw.

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  12. What a lovely post! I am awaiting a book from the library to help me find plants to attract birds and butterflies. The heat in north Florida is so intense that I can't copy an English garden design. Oh how I loved the red poppy gardens I'd see when we traveled there.

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    1. I bet there is a great variety available in Florida! I'll be interested in what you choose, and how it looks when you make the garden.

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  13. Many of the wildflowers native to New England also grow here in Kentucky along with some that enjoy the milder winters. We've learned in our 11 years in KY that lawns/yards and verges must be kept mowed to combat ticks, chiggers and snakes. I've been slowly creating areas for native flowers: several varieties of coneflowers, wild asters, monarda, prairie sage, along with some purchased achilleas. One of my triumphs from seed is blackberry lilies. Finding the balance between stamina to tend the gardens and the joy of them becomes more of an issue with the years.
    Times of unrest that threaten our children and grandchildren tear at our hearts; often so little we can do but stand by and pick up the pieces.

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    1. I wonder if mowed paths might work. To me, you are wonder woman with all the work you do (and your husband!).

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