Thursday, May 19, 2011

Garden Changes By Nature

From last year, when the garden was a foot deep heap of magnolia leaves and a few japanese holly ferns, til today that little world is a different place.  It actually looks.... pretty.  Unfinished, still, but pretty.
The back garden before I owned it


Another view of the back garden before I owned it
But some of the most breathtaking changes are ones that have happened without me.   Last year when I started shoveling out dirt for garden plants, the dirt was like a dry silt, mixed with some broken concrete pieces of a project gone awry from years past.  It didn't even look like dirt.  2 healthy doses of compost manure last year, and always spending the time to amend every hole intended for a plant has lead to each shovelful this year containing worms.  You build it, and they will come.  It is amazing to me, as I don't know how they figure this stuff out so quickly?  Wormy scouts?  I mean, they don't have eyes!

Within minutes last year of planting flowering perennials, I had bees happily roaming from flower to flower, doing their life's work.  Now, I can sort of understand how they might have come across flowers in the once barren wasteland.  "Fred, you aren't gonna believe this... I was just zooming back from the Ashley sunflowers and took a small detour because there were a couple of suspicious birds, and remember that old place to the left of Ashley? The one where you accidently mistook that half buried beer can for a tulip (snicker)? Well, there's flowers all over the dang place... come on, before anyone else finds it.

"Oh come on now, Pete, I was just over there not two weeks ago... I think you need to lay off the pollen beer."

By fall of last year I was graced with butterflies and moths, had met my first two snakes, had a close encounter with a curious hummingbird, and my garden became a happening spot for carolina anoles far and wide.  Every day the lady teenaged lizards are putting on coconut oil and basking in the sun.  They sigh those lovely southern sighs as they watch the hunkie older males take down mosquitos with their strapping tongues.

Sometimes these little things take your breath away.  Its like they have come to visit me, because they like me, they really like me.   As ridiculous as this all sounds it does make me very happy to know that they wouldn't be here except for me rolling out the green carpet for them by wanting a garden.

13 comments:

  1. Your garden is looking so great Jess, and I too find it amazing seeing all the different variety of wildlife who show up when a garden is planted. Earthworms are always a good sign that your soil is healthy, and that all the hard work of amending an unsuitable soil was worthwhile.

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  2. They really do like you. They say you set a good table.

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  3. Love your post Jess. It's thrilling how the critters are just waiting for a nice place to visit - I still remember waking up the morning after digging and filling my little pond the first time and finding frogs in it - it's that precious connectedness with the natural world.

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  4. Pretty gaura, great lizard pic. It's amazing what a difference a year can make. Isn't it satisfying to know you're helping out the birds, bugs, and bees - all the while making your garden into your own paradise.

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  5. Love this post. Not sure I would like to encounter lizards all the time. Don't they startle you?

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  6. Jess, I know just how you feel. When we first moved here the property had been largely untouched for 20 years! Despite being in the woods, it was eerily silent. We didn't hear many birds, or see much wildlife for the first couple of years. It's so rewarding, as improvements are made, to see the garden literally come to life. I love your Anoles lizard photo, he looks like quite a cheeky fellow. Probably laughing at that bee and the beer can ;)

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  7. When I moved here, there was nothing in the yard but grass. Many plants later, snakes, turtles, insects, birds, chipmunks, squirrels, a possum and the list goes on. You made a pretty home you and for happy critters.

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  8. Thanks everyone :) It is wild kingdom here, surrounded by concrete! Bonnie - the lizards max out at about 3 inches long, so not too frightening. Also, they can change color so actually you really have to look to find them usually. Its funny though, if you take a look at photos of mine that are sort of panned out, then zoom in on various spots, nearly always you can spot a lizard. Its like were's waldo.

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  9. Great story! They really do come, if you feed them :). It has been much the same in my yard - it was owned by an elderly couple before us, and they didn't do anything so the clay was hard and rocky and there were soda cans and nails in the beds. Now there are worms (and snails and ants and aphids).
    Wonderful lizard picture!

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  10. Jess, It is just like Doug Tallamy from Bringing Nature Home says. Our gardens are the best and only hope for native flora and fauna. You demonstrate that it's not that hard and doesn't take that long. Great post. Carolyn

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  11. Jess, you have done a fantastic job of your garden and in such short time! You give me great hope for what can be accomplished when you put your mind to it. The lizards are definitely on to a good thing.

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  12. Isn't it awesome how that works? I've got a couple of areas that were hardpack clay, and the fact that after three years, I now occasionally turn up a worm makes me absurdly happy.

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  13. Jess, What an amazing transformation in just one year. How smart of you to enlist Mother Nature as your gardening partner. (BTW, you do know, don't you, that if you ever actually *finish* the garden, you have to sell your house and start over somewhere else?) -Jean

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