“Oh no,” says the lone reader of my blog, “not a darn gardening post! They are SOOO boring!”
Well, stupor ain’t my middle name, so I’ll make this short… I just wanted to point out what great things can happen when an appreciation of history, a knowledge of native flora, and a historian who likes to play in the dirt collide.
Methinks that tiller's not going anywhere.
A looong time ago, I picked up several pieces of Thurber brick and made a walkway out of them. Alas, I dismantled the walkway because we moved. At the new-ish house (still an antique, but new to me), I made three garden beds with them instead. In the garden beds, I placed several native species of grasses, many culled from the sides of a dirt road in Montague County (psst, don’t tell!). I surrounded the plants with rock to create a southwestern feel. Then, I took a good look at my antique collection, which really consists of a bunch of rusty items that we’ve found at flea markets, along railroad tracks, or at Goodwill Stores over the years. I set them around the garden and, Bob’s your uncle, I created a pretty decent-looking garden!
A stop sign, old coca-cola ad, and broken insulators bring some ambience
But I’m no green thumb, so who knows how good this garden will hold up a year from now. I do know that I won’t need to water it much, so there’s that. Also, I wanted to “embrace the ranch” – we bought a ranch-style house, which is long but not wide, with a small front porch and large patio. I’ve always been partial to cottage and prairie houses, but this house was just a much better fit for the family. So, what better way to appreciate a housing style than to dress it up like I think it should be?
Old shovels lend themselves to garden relics.
Let me know what you think! As long as you’re kind.
