Superhero

“Mom, if you could have any superhero power, what would it be?”


I want to answer “I don’t know” right away because I don’t want to think about superhero powers just then. I’m thinking about stopping to get the mail, making dinner and a million other things.


But…I come up with an honest answer.


“I would want to be able to get rid of the garlic mustard on our property in one second”.  “Maybe even get rid of garlic mustard in the whole country in one second”.


Zane is quiet as he thinks this one through.


“That really doesn’t count as a superhero power, mom”.  “I mean like flying or teleporting or flame throwing or turning things into ice.” “I mean, how would you do it?” “How would you rid the world of garlic mustard?”


I’m just proud and sad that my son knows what garlic mustard even is.


I add targeted surgical strike explosions as my method of eradicating this incredibly invasive biennial weed and Zane is happy.  The explosions make it a way better superhero power.


When we get home, he helps me pull these plants for a couple hours…swinging his hefty bag full of garlic mustard like Thor’s hammer. I keep telling him that if we don’t pull the small patches now, they’ll multiply exponentially into bigger and bigger patches and take over the whole woods.  


Although I know they’re just an opportunist making a living without any predators to deter their unwelcome invasion, I can’t help but hate them. I truly hate them and get great satisfaction from removing each and every one.


14 person hours and a week later, my land is once again safe from the choke of garlic mustard, at least until next April.


I feel like a Superhero.

I wish rabbits liked garlic mustard.  But, they don't.

I hate this plant.  Do you see anything else blooming?

Prairie Fur

Easter is behind us. 


Suffering from a sugar hangover, I download my weekend pics and reflect on soft plants and horses instead of sticky peeps.


Lupine is emerging.  Horses look forlorn as they shed their winter coats.

Lupinus perennis is waking up. Check out the hairs on the leaves.

Ringo is forlorn, but happy. Even with a messy mane.

Both are furry.

As I research pubescent leaves, I think about how lupine uses those downy hairs or trichomes to protect itself against moisture loss to the elements. Hairs that create a boundary layer between the delicate leaf surface and drying April wind. Hairs that reflect the damaging rays of a July sun.

Furry leaves are one of the many adaptations that keep this native prairie plant healthy during a Wisconsin growing season.

What about that water droplet in the center? Is there a function associated with this entrapment? Does it create a lens effect which magnifies the sunlight, warms up the center and enhances photosynthesis during a cool spring morning? Or maybe the plant absorbs the droplet slowly before the sun has a chance to evaporate it away.


So many questions.


Do you know?

Garden Muses are as unique as the garden itself

My sister in law's garden was inspired through a different channel.  

Note the common milkweed that towers over the gnome.  


Even though her vegetable rows are straight and weed free, she spared this prairie native guest because she wanted the monarchs to feel welcome.

This Heron is my Muse

David bought me this heron as a gift during the spring of 2009.  A gift that sits weathered in the center of my garden among the lichen-covered stones and cracked birdbath. 


2009. A turning point in my life and in my garden.  


With the heron as my muse, I seed curves of bull's blood beets and rhubarb red swiss chard.  Arugula and chamomile rest in drifts along the field stone steppers anchored into the sandy loam.  Although I still pull out the quackgrass that invades the perimeter, I leave the milkweed and bergamot that have crept in.  I've relaxed my rules a bit.


My dad doesn't understand my garden design.  He taught me to lay out straight lines to create straight rows.  "Makes the tilling easier", he said.


"It does make sense", I say to myself.  But I'm still seeding curves instead of rows this year because I like how it looks.  My garden, with the exception of my metal muse, is living, breathing art.  Art that produces a bunch of chocolate mint tea, potatoes and gigantic sunflowers when all is said and done.


I love the planting and weeding and wandering through almost more than the harvesting.  It gives me a chance to keep tabs on the phoebe family under the deck.


My garden. 


This spring I finally have time to write about it.

I'm star struck by what seems like perfection in the natural world.
The way the feathers lay smooth on a sandhill crane.
Primaries, secondaries, tertials. Feathers that work together for the purpose of dance, lift-off and flight.  A wing that took eons to create.


As a land planner, one of my motives is the creation and protection of native habitat for birds.  Although I strive to replicate what I see in nature, it's tough to mimic what took millions of years to create. I do the best that I can.


Maybe that's why I'm drawn to origami?  I can meditatively fold a square piece of paper into a crane in five minutes or less.  Not as beautiful as the original, but a beautiful symbol of the real deal.