gardenthoughts

i was in stu’s garden today .. we’ve been working together for five or six years now .. and we’re delighted, every year, with the progress we’re making .. a few years ago, after a trip to ontario, stu decided that he would like to make a butterfly garden .. his intention was to encourage monarch butterflies to come to the garden .. and so, both of us, ignorant really, began the process of creating a butterfly garden .. on the top and down the sides of a rock embankment that defines one side of his property .. what had been a craggy rock bluff has, with lots of hard work and love for the potential, become a garden .. it makes it a bit challenging when you put your shovel to the ground, ready to dig in, and find that one or two inches down you encounter solid bedrock .. lol .. ah, the joys of gardening on an island .. one huge rock, essentially .. anyway .. year after year, we’ve brought dirt and manure over from town .. year after year i’ve built up the soil .. layer by layer .. at this point, it’s about eight to ten inches deep in spots .. it’s been a great ‘build a garden’ experience .. yup .. we’re bulding a garden .. magic ..

i’ve never wanted to design other people’s gardens .. i’m more of a gardener’s gardener .. it’s my pleasure to assist people to bring about their own expression in their garden .. whatever that expression might be .. for stu it’s a butterfly garden .. for phil, it was a winter flowering shade garden .. i have enough ‘designing’ to do in my own yard .. thank you very much .. in our garden it’s more a joint effort .. frank builds the beds .. i plant them up .. pretty much willy nilly .. although with time i’m gathering experience .. i still don’t see it as my mission to design anyone else’s garden space .. that said, i’m happy to do the work required to create another’s garden .. and i’m delighted to maintain the gardens .. i find that every garden i have the pleasure of working in, is an expression of the one whose garden it is .. ‘designed’ .. or willy nilly .. stu’s garden is a bit of both, really .. he dreams it up .. i plant it ..

i’m beginning to realize that digression is simply part of my nature .. and so .. please bear with me ..

in the case of stu and me, ignorance has proven bliss .. and, although we haven’t yet attracted monarch butterflies, there are a number of others that are regular visitors .. different varieties of admiral butterflies (i think they’re called) .. lovely yellow and black striped swallowtails .. little blue guys .. tiny orange and black, skippers (?) .. and a few others that flit through from time to time ..

not all the plants in the butterfly garden are butterfly plants .. however, we have planted many that are .. butterfly weed .. asters .. coneflowers .. verbena .. agastache .. cat mint .. daisies .. flea bane .. red valerian .. alliums .. salvias .. to name a few ..

in the ‘non butterfly plants’ we have a startling red peony .. a gentian sage .. then, there’s a lovely big patch of lupines .. and we’ve let the foxgloves set themselves about the garden .. in fact, the foxgloves, and the lupines have been putting on the most wonderfull performance for us over the past two or three weeks .. i deadhead the lupines weekly when i’m there, and they are carrying on beautifully .. the foxgloves get taller every week .. the flowers climbing steadfastly up the stalks .. these plants may not be butterfly attracting plants .. however, they are attractive to stu and me .. we happily stand at the railing, looking over the garden .. oooo-ing and ahhh-ing ..

and, after all, that’s ultimately the point of any garden .. isn’t it .. ? .. isn’t that what drives us on .. or motivates us .. in part, perhaps .. to continually create a garden .. a space which gives us pleasure .. changing .. adding .. subtracting .. this colour .. that texture .. these together .. big patches of this or that .. continually editing in an attempt to achieve a certain picture .. or a feeling .. or a theme .. doesn’t matter, really .. does it .. it’s done for the sake of  pleasure .. and “what is pleasing to one .. ” .. every garden’s different ..

so .. butterfly season is coming upon us quickly .. every day we see more and more about .. maybe this year there’ll even be a monarch ..

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010 at 3:44 pm and is filed under ornamental gardens. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.