365Caws is now in its 14th year of publication, and was originally intended to end after 365 days. It has sometimes been difficult for me to find new material, particularly during the winter months, but now as I enter my own twilight years, I cannot guarantee that I will be able to provide daily posts. It is my hope that along the way I may have inspired someone to a greater curiosity about the natural world. If so, I can rest, content in the knowledge that my work here has been done.
Saturday, May 28, 2022
Surprise Calendula
Day 227: Between the back wall of my house and the detached garage, there is a strip of ground roughly 10 feet wide. A portion of the space is taken up by wood and concrete covers concealing an old well and a pit occupied by the captive-air tank which provides pressure to my domestic water supply. Weeds and tough grasses filled in the remainder when I moved in over thirty years ago, and after digging much of it out, I discovered that the underlying soil was too poor to support much of anything else. The plot became known as the Barren Wasteland, and I took it as a challenge to my horticultural skills. Much of what I planted there failed quickly, either not germinating or not returning the following year. I threw out packages of "wildflower mix," knowing that I'd have to weed out some of the invasives which the packages promised were "selected for your area," but I needn't have worried because for many years, the only success story was written in California Poppies, something I really didn't want to take over my yard. I dug, I weeded, I added modest soil amendments as the budget would allow (after all, I wasn't planning to grow vegetables in the plot), and I transplanted a few durable natives in the hopes that their chemistry would begin to convert the soil to something more plant-friendly. Likewise, I moved a few favourites in from the other flower beds and eventually, the Barren Wasteland began looking less barren. Today, you wouldn't recognize it as waste ground. Admittedly, it's shaggy and unkempt: a "cottage garden," if you will, with no organization, no structure, a testament to those survivors who now possess it with a determined grip, including a few surprise Calendulas which drifted in on a favourable wind and decided to settle there.
Labels:
Barren Wasteland,
Calendula,
gardening
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