It's become clear to me through posts and PMs that there are some gardeners here just waiting for the chance to discuss gardening!
So, I was thinking... how do you use gardening, or how does it affect you if you need a break, need some respite, need to relax, need inspiration....how do you use it as a therapy tool in caregiving?
What are your activities: Do you go out and pull weeds, read a magazine, design new beds? Look through garden catalogues? Go to garden stores?
And what interests have you added to your gardening? Visit estate or garden displays? Do you go to garden shows?
Does anyone design and plant Knot Gardens? Raised bed planters? Assistive gardens? Pollinator gardens (and have you thought of ways to help the bees and butterflies?)
Are your gardens primarily for pleasure or food, or a mix of both? Do you grow plants for medicinal purposes? Which ones, how do you harvest and process them? Any suggestions?
Do you grow plants that can be used in crafts, such as grapevines for wreaths and lavender for lavender wands? Do you make herbal products such as creams, lotions, chapstick?
What else can you share about gardening and the means in which it nurtures your soul?
On the plus side I've been harvesting lettuce and I plan to stir fry beet tops and my broccoli thingies tonight for supper, so at least there's that.
🍩🍩🍩🍩🍩🍩🍩🍩🍩🍩🍩🍩🍩🍩🍩🍩🍩🍩🍩🍩🍩🍩
roses https://www.facebook.com/emjo2002/posts/10156924275381442?notif_id=1592880910077656¬if_t=feedback_reaction_generic
japanese anemones
https://www.facebook.com/emjo2002/posts/10156922725716442?notif_id=1592847031552206¬if_t=feedback_reaction_generic
This is when your loved one has started to butcher the plants in the yard and garden, thinking they are 'gardening'.
Is there a theme to 'this', I am wondering. Maybe the decorative apple tree was cut on one side only, and died being over pruned on that side? Literally, there is a one-sided decorative apple tree. 😒 Today, the prolific cape honeysuckle was cut. A hole, the size of a man standing in it, cutting, cutting, cutting. Until I rescued it, asked hubs to stop, please stop, there goes my privacy from the street to the front porch.....STOP! 😲 I don't like seeing just the branches.
But the sadness is not from the lop-sided gardening. It is from, what is happening to my dH, why is he doing this, what will become of him, what can I do to help his cognitive status and the resulting behaviors?
Feeling like, my garden will be okay looking like an "Alice in Wonderland" sort of place. Only half there. I can decorate accordingly with figurines maybe. Yellow painted rocks with red dots? A brightly colored scare-crow holding a pitch fork dressed as my hubs? Zink the skink habitats, and lizards names painted on their tiny homes, lizzy, lizardo, lizabeth..... Then, labeling the swamp of sadness, the desert of dreams, the mountains of forgetfulness.
Sad. 🥀
Really grateful for the only 'gardener' left, my hubs. He hand prunes things. ❤️️
Have lots of birds eating up the worms, I suppose.
If the goatheads have gone to seed, you can use a wet/dry shop vac to pick them up without spreading them around.
I think you need a flame thrower!
Each week the weeds get a bit more under control. Looking better, so much better.
My garden is moving into the mid/late summer blahs, the early stuff is mostly past it's prime and I'm kept busy trying to keep my containers hydrated.
“The types of seeds in the packages are unknown at this time and may be an invasive plant species,” Virginia’s agriculture department said Friday.
In Utah, Lori Culley received a package with Chinese markings that she wrongly assumed were earrings.
“I opened them up and they were seeds,” Culley told her local Fox 13 station. “Obviously they’re not jewelry!”
Both states and US Customs and Border Protection are investigating the packages. They’re advising everyone not to plant the seeds and to report the deliveries to local authorities.
NOPE.
Somehow I came into contact with a different patch of poison ivy in the garden and I am in agony! I think I touched the "Extended Release" version because the first blisters came up two weeks ago and just in the last 40 hours I have new patches in weird places. I'm heavily medicated with Allegra and Caladryll lotion but the itching is pretty much nonstop on my inner forearms, one upper arm, and behind my knee. I think it must've been lurking in a big pile of weeds I carried from one of the beds to the compost pile.
I wish I could show you pix of this garden though, it brings me a lot of joy (and this summer some discomfort) but it still beats being in my house all day with my inlaws!
Best, Marya
I may try boiling water, but I don't want to injure any worms in the area.
And this morning I saw a lovely yellow caterpillar scurrying across the driveway. I'm not sure what it was; might have been a Wooly Bear except that it had a black mark on its rear end. I can't find any caterpillars with a similar mark. But for some reason I thought of tent caterpillars, although they're ugly black worms, writhing and crawling over each other.
Michigan residents were warned of this I think in 2019.
"The American Dagger Moth caterpillar has been spotted on the trails of Mid Michigan College's campus in Harrison. The Clare County Chamber of Commerce put out a warning for residents on its Facebook page.
The caterpillars measure about 2 inches and have four sets of black bristles across their body that resemble long eyelashes, according to insectidentification.org. A fifth set sticks out of its rear end. When touched, the bristles, which contain a toxin, break off and embed into skin. That causes a stinging, burning sensation that can lead to a rash."
Hope this helps you! First google response to
"YELLOW CATERPILLAR"