I'll show you mine, Mark

I had almost completely forgotten about these photos. They were taken at the end of June and beginning of July and focused on the little patch that used to be my 'garden'. Well, that kind of has progressed to become more of the pollinator garden I had in mind when I started fooling around with plants a year ago. I used to have one solitary lily here. Now there's three. And the white one (which was the one that I planted first) was super pretty all through May. There has been an explosion of plants, thanks to my tendency to buy plants on a whim while looking for some bananas and to some unexpected helpers. 

Some of the plants (like this one) came to be for the grace of ALDI. Yo see, my approach to gardening is: if it's on the shelves, I may get it. At the beginning of spring, I got some bags of bulbs and I decided to plant them. I have no gardening experience, so I basically followed the instructions and tried to plant them in different parts of my patch. My friend told me I'm going to get surprises next year, because some of those bulbs come up one year after they've been planted. I'm looking forward to that. 

The thing is, I never counted on Mother Nature and the little critters that live in the woods just ten feet from where the patch is: the chipmunks and squirrels broke havoc in the garden. There has not been one day when I would come out and find bulbs uprooted and half-eaten laying around or a whole section dug up and messed around. You have no idea how many times I screamed at the dirt. The good part is that now I have many different flowers that I do not remember planting, in very interesting places. One of the advantages that your backyard literally ends in the woods.

The natural outcome of the squirrels and chipmunks dining on the fresh bulbs and then throwing them around is that now I have flowers in several places where I had not planted any. Call it gardening by default. I proposed and Mother Nature disposed. I actually like the chaotic  energy my little patch has.

This little rose bush was a gift, along with other three and I planted them thinking they were gonna die. Well, to my surprise, three survived (one red, one yellow and one salmon that now lives on the other side of the patch) and they have all kept giving me roses since June. This guy here was at the end of one of those spurs, after a day of rain. I'm going to have to read on roses, because I understand you have to cut them a little so they survive winter.

There are some patches of flowers that literally appeared overnight. I think I planted them last year, leftovers of a planter that was hanging in the front garden. I thought they were going to die anyway, so I put them in the ground. Now I have little patches of pretty flowers that are still going strong. The hostas were found on the side of the road in a box in a country road close to Joliet. Somebody cleaned up their garden and left the boxes next to their mailbox with a little 'free' sign. I jumped out of the car and put them in the trunk. Now they live next to the birdhouses. 

This part looks totally different now. There are more of the yellow flowers (now gone) and there's some milkweed I got in a starter pack that is now growing and some more of those daisies. There's also some little plants popping up that I have no idea what they are but I'll wait until next year to see what becomes of this part of the patch. The bricks you see laying around were supposed to be a little path, but I, not thinking that Mother Nature had other plans, created the path before many of the plants would come up and now the path has been interrupted by plants or the steps have been covered by hostas. The bricks came from streets in Chicago. My friend heard they were giving them away and got them for me. Now they live in my garden.

This is another part of the garden which has changed radically in the last month. There's tons of new plants (some popped up in mid-July) and there's now two little avocado trees from an experiment I did in May from a YouTube channel. I have no idea if they're going to survive the winter, but they look pretty cool right now. There's also two little hostas (I have no idea where they came from ) next to the bird bath and some other plants that I don't remember planting growing there. The fucking chipmunks were super busy, apparently. The blocks were in the garage and I decided I wanted to plant something there (again, I blame YouTube) and those plants are doing actually fine. Who knew?

All in all, I'm happy with my experiment. What used to be a mulch pad with a swing set and a sand pit is now a little garden with flowers and bees and insects and birds (I've become a birdlord and all the birdhouses except one were occupied all through June). The bug hotels are doing fine. One was almost destroyed by some creature that dug into it but now it's back up. I have spent hours de-weeding it (fucking weeds) and moving some plants around. There are some plants there I have no idea what they are (or where they came from) and I discovered that some plants the neighbor gave me last year DO spread and I have to think what I'm going to do with them before they take over the whole backyard.

Meanwhile, I'm really enjoying this part of me that I had never explored: the accidental gardener. I have decided I want to have a 'country garden'. A place where plants just grow and do not follow an exact pattern or design. I'm gonna let Mother Nature do her thing and just sit down and enjoy it. When I'm sitting in my home office, I look straight into this little garden. That's how I notice all the flowers popping everywhere and also the fucking squirrels digging shit up. It's quite relaxing, actually. 

XOXO

P.S. Jimmy and I were both mesmerized by Mark, the man in the title. I have watched many of his videos and they have been very inspiring. It does not hurt that he has big hands and a kind smile. And that peach fuzz in his forearms and that he fills those pants just right. He could come and work on my planter any time, mind you.

And now I want to plant mums....