Buy a house so I can garden on my own land

I went to a conference yesterday about gardening with native plants. I would love to be able to say I owned acreage that I had planted with native plant communities. I came away with a lot of good ideas, even for my little yard. It’s a start but I plan to do more.

I wish more people could get past the need to have perfect green lawns. Not only are we losing native insects, birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians, we’re also ruining our rivers and streams and depleting the groundwater tables. What I learned about curbs and gutters and the effect of pavement on groundwater is scary indeed.

http://www.for-wild.org/

I’m going to be moving soon and most likely losing my four year old garden of over 200 different perennials. I can’t take that to an apartment complex. My little plants are barely emerging from the mud and I’ll probably be digging them up in a month to give away.

The last big garden I created stayed behind when I moved. It broke my heart to come back later and see all of my plants buried in weeds and unmown grass. I planted a 25’x25’ butterfly garden almost entirely with plants I grew from seed myself. The whole thing was ruined by people who don’t understand gardening and I won’t let that happen again. I’ll give this one away and plant with grass if it means the plants I know so well have homes that will appreciate them.

Right now I can walk the gardens and recognize my plants by a few leaves sticking out of the soil – even without labels. My bulbs are blooming and so many of my perennials are nice big clumps this year. I was so looking forward to watching the show but now I have to give up.

It doesn’t really help that my dog won’t be going with me. I wish I could afford a place I could call my own so this wouldn’t keep happening. I’m so tired of losing things I love.

I guess this gives me incentive to get my student loans paid off.

My current home may be sold soon. I’ve spent nearly four years landscaping and creating a haven in my yard, but I don’t own it. If my new home doesn’t have a space I can landscape, I’ll need to find homes for my plants. I know every single one, and even in March in Wisconsin, I am walking the garden looking for new green shoots and signs of life. My last hope may be volunteering to move my garden to a city park if they’ll give me the land in exchange for my labor and donation.

I’m not happy without flowers. I garden for wildlife and I don’t want the birds and butterflies to lose another patch of habitat.