A New Place, a New Garden

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Oak saplings at MWRD Dear Readers, Over the past few months, I have heard from a number of folks asking when I would start posting again. This has been heartening: an interested (small) reading public! Soon, I’d say and then do, not much. The truth is, since last I posted, almost two years ago, my life has changed a great deal in ways both dramatic and subtle. It’s taken awhile to adapt. In early 2023, my husband and I decided to leave our old, loved house with its 35-year-old native plant garden, and move into a hundred-year-old two-flat with our grown daughter and her dog. We felt happy to be upholding that fine old Chicago tradition of multi-generational two-flat living. However, like anyone else who has left long-term, settled life in one place, we discovered that the phrase “we moved,” doesn’t even begin to do justice to the upheaval involved. And then there’s the starting over/settling in process requiring new adjustments and forming new habits of life, for much longer than you m...
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Spring Firsts

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I love the first occurrences that welcome in a new season. Here are some for this spring:
Saturday I saw my first bumblebee emerge from under some fallen leaves, totter about, and then fly off at speed. Bumblebee (Bombus ssp.) queens over winter in underground burrows and emerge at this time to search for a good place to lay eggs and rear young. Maybe it was a spring first for her too.

Yesterday, I planted some leaf lettuce in a big pot and then put wire mesh weighed down with half a brick on top to keep the hungry birdies out. It was one of those days on which you could look at a tree in the morning and when you looked again an hour later the leaves were visibly larger. In the afternoon several family members and I sat out on the front porch for the first time and watched the first real thunderstorm of the season blow in from the south. Good cracking thunder and netted lightning, and later on, steady rain, to which comfortable drumming I fell asleep.

Related Posts:
Sandhill Cranes and Spring Resolutions
Happy Spring!

Comments

Anonymous said…
Dear Adrian, I feel quite inspired with the idea of growing lettuce in a container and intend to discuss the matter with J, my gardener/handyman, at the first possible opportunity. A brilliant idea, and a space saving one too.

I love the sound of heavy rain falling, always believing that it is doing good.
April 6, 2010 at 12:10 AM
Adrian Ayres Fisher said…
Hi Edith, I find that the bunnies then don't eat my lettuce--and it looks pretty, too. (After it germinates I take the wire mesh off.)
April 6, 2010 at 1:22 PM
RURAL said…
Adrian, I must remember to get out there and plant my lettuce. I plant in containers also, and they definitely save space.

It's a magical day when the bumble bees first come out, and the leaves almost visibly change in front of us. Those are some of the great reasons we garden.

Jen
April 7, 2010 at 10:03 AM
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