The first lavender I planted, I treated like a celebrity. I watered it every few days. I top-dressed the bed with the same bark mulch I used for the hydrangeas. I gave it compost in spring like I gave everything…
I spent three springs in a row pulling the same weeds from the same six-foot strip of gravel by the side of the house. Same chickweed. Same crabgrass.
Last July I was standing in the yard at dusk getting eaten alive by mosquitoes when a dragonfly the size of my thumb parked itself on the fence post and started picking them off mid-air. Watched it for ten minutes.…
I fell in love with weeping trees at a botanical garden. That cascading form, branches sweeping toward the ground, everything around it suddenly looking more intentional. Then I went home and measured my yard. No room for a 40-foot weeping…
I started saving eggshells because someone on the internet told me they’d fix my tomatoes. Tossed a handful of crushed shells around the base, waited, and nothing happened. The blossom end rot came anyway.
Last October I pulled my dead tomato plants out of the raised bed and stared at the soil underneath.
My three-year-old picked our first dahlia tuber off the garden center shelf because it looked, and I’m quoting her, “like a dead potato with spider legs.” She was right. It did.
When I was seven, my grandmother had a strip of poppies along the side of her house that I was convinced were magic. Paper-thin petals in orange and red, and every time the wind hit them they looked like they…
I killed my first batch of snapdragon seedlings with a heat mat. Set the tray on it like I do with tomatoes and peppers, walked away, came back to nothing. Not a single sprout. Turns out, snapdragons are the opposite…
I wanted raised beds. The cedar kits online started at $80. Pre-made galvanized steel troughs were $150. I had $12 in my pocket and a weekend with no plans.
