Lately, I've been thinking about turning my yard into a small urban forest.
I've been thinking about that for a number of reasons. One being that the flowers, shrubs, plants, trees, and weeds in my garden generally tend to have a mind of their own and no matter how much time I spend in the garden trying to keep them in check, trying to get them to look "civilized," they just riot on me, refusing to be
Canadian Gardeningized.
I don't know why I torture myself by subscribing to
Canadian Gardening. I guess I just like to look at unattainable fictions. Another impossible dream to tack onto my short yardstick of wouldn't-that-be-nice-if-you-had-the-time. There are places in my yard that are truly hopeless in being contained, directed, or coaxed into domesticity. Of course, I haven't taken pictures of the madness spots.
The flowers in my garden speak their own language and keep talking back to me. I know that their language is heard by the birds, dragonflies, butterflies, honey bees, wasps, moles, and strange flying things, like this Snowberry Clearwing, a type of Sphinx Moth, because they talk to the flowers all the time, especially when I'm not looking.
But the takeover of the plants' determination to spring up where they will and to take over large sections not assigned to them is not the main reason why I've been thinking of turning our yard into a small urban forest. Rather, it's that all over our city small lots and pieces of land that hold small stands of trees are now disappearing, being cut down for "development." Why not fill our yard with trees? Growing in our yard, there are already two birches, a tamarack, a balsam, two mountain ash trees, a juniper, a blue spruce, a Manitoba maple, an apple tree and two jack pines. Did I forget anyone?
Lately, I've been thinking about turning my yard into a small urban forest.
I've been thinking about that for a number of reasons. One being that the flowers, shrubs, plants, trees, and weeds in my garden generally tend to have a mind of their own and no matter how much time I spend in the garden trying to keep them in check, trying to get them to look "civilized," they just riot on me, refusing to be Canadian Gardeningized.
I don't know why I torture myself by subscribing to Canadian Gardening. I guess I just like to look at unattainable fictions. Another impossible dream to tack onto my short yardstick of wouldn't-that-be-nice-if-you-had-the-time. There are places in my yard that are truly hopeless in being contained, directed, or coaxed into domesticity. Of course, I haven't taken pictures of the madness spots.
The flowers in my garden speak their own language and keep talking back to me. I know that their language is heard by the birds, dragonflies, butterflies, honey bees, wasps, moles, and strange flying things, like this Snowberry Clearwing, a type of Sphinx Moth, because they talk to the flowers all the time, especially when I'm not looking.
But the takeover of the plants' determination to spring up where they will and to take over large sections not assigned to them is not the main reason why I've been thinking of turning our yard into a small urban forest. Rather, it's that all over our city small lots and pieces of land that hold small stands of trees are now disappearing, being cut down for "development." Why not fill our yard with trees? Growing in our yard, there are already two birches, a tamarack, a balsam, two mountain ash trees, a juniper, a blue spruce, a Manitoba maple, an apple tree and two jack pines. Did I forget anyone?
4 comments:
Your garden is beautiful! Let them grow wild! At least, there will be an oasis of greeness in your town. Loved your post. Hugs, M.
thanks, MP, I will drop by your blog and find out about your travels and guiding.
By all means, an urban forest! However, you may find yourself trying to keep native competitive species, like aspens, out with the same energy you spend on flowers! ;)
I will definitely look for those aspen saplings as I pull out all those manitoba maple saplings that are EVERYWHERE!
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