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| Oak saplings at MWRD |
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 might expect.
More to the point for this blog is the new garden, a well laid out collection of neglected,
overgrown, non-native ornamental plants, many invasive, featuring a number of species I’ve
vilified in voice and print and physically removed from one forest preserve or another. Serves
me right, I suppose. It’s exciting—a whole new piece of land located in what was once an oak
woodland savanna. It’s daunting—the soil degraded from years of chemical drenching, excessive
mulching, and fallen leaf removal, and the plants deeply, widely, aggressively entrenched. I’ve
spent whole days—weeks—digging up daylilies, pulling vinca, and cutting down European
burning bush in order to plant wild natives. First in, a small swamp white oak and several
different shrub species and then, after more clearing, sedges, grasses, and forbs. There’s still a
long way to go before the birds and the pollinators will feel like it’s home—or me, either, I
suppose. Yet every new plant that grows successfully contributes its part to the process of
healing this land and rebuilding the web of relationships. Of which more anon.
But now we have settled. As I write on this frigid day I’m ensconced at my old table in my “new”
sunporch turned study with its view of the snowy backyard. There are no excuses for not
writing, and so many reasons to write. Our country has entered a new, bewildering, uncertain,
possibly dangerous period. Whatever each of us can do help strengthen and create anew our
own communities is of the utmost importance, no matter how small the action. Strong social
webs help give balance during times of chaos. As one small contribution, I will make posts, on
no particular schedule, about gardening and other topics I find interesting that I hope you will
enjoy reading.
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