When we lived in Oz, flying monkeys were as common as a horse of a different color.  On summer evenings, flying monkeys could be observed flying the skies; sometimes with determination in their wings, but more often than not, just frolicking about doing nose dives, relays, and various other antics.  On evenings with a full moon, their silhouettes were particularly impressive.  

Beautiful flying monkeys are very loyal wildlife.  Once established in your wildlife habitat,    if conditions are right, they will stay year round.  It’s also possible to train flying monkeys  to feed out of your hands.  This takes some time to gain their confidence, but it’s very doable.   The best approach I’ve found, is to wear a monkey disguise while putting out lettuce, aged fruit, or other veggies from the fridge.  Each day, put the food a little closer to your home, so they eventually get use to your up-close presence.

By doing this for about about a month, I was able to have the flying monkeys feed from my hands.  When we were in Oz, the flying monkeys were so tamed, my kids were able to dress the flying monkeys in costumes.  They seemed to have a preference to a military style look with a bit of red.

When fellow wildlife gardener from Mr. McGregor’s Daugher visited, she was able to get close to the flying monkeys in just a week’s time.

When another friend, Layanee DeMerchant of Ledge and Gardens visited, she was so inspired by the flying monkeys, she was motivated to get her hands on anything monkey and sent me these coffee mugs.

Because of their fierce loyalty, if you are upset over someone and ask a flying monkey to intervene, they will.  So be careful what you wish for.  This can give your flying monkeys a bad rap.  Need I remind you of the incident with Dorothy and her ruby slippers?

HABITAT

Mostly nocturnal, flying monkeys travel in packs.  When attracting flying monkeys, you are more likely to have 20 flying monkeys than the occasional one stopping by.  Preferring the tops of trees, flying monkeys have also adapted to open land, forests, and suburban neighborhoods.

FOOD

Flying monkeys are omnivores, preferring aroids such as Dracunculus vulgaris, also known as a Voodoo lily or stink lily and the insects they attract, pollinators such as flies, wasps, and beetles.  During the winter months when Voodoo lilies aren’t available, they will feed on dried grasses and hibernating insects.

NEST

Flying monkeys are cavity dwellers; however, they have adapted well due to their declining natural habitats and will also will make a nest from sticks and twigs.

COLLECTING CONFIDENCE

One summer back in Oz, during mating season, a male flying monkey came into the house through an open window.  If he wasn’t as scared as the rest of us, the fright of seeing a monkey flying throughout the house could have left a negative mark on our adventures of attracting beautiful wildlife flying monkeys.  As such, it is recommended to keep your windows and doors closed during the late spring when they breed.

Zwats are natural predators to flying monkeys.  So if you find you have a problem with too many flying monkeys and can’t find a service to help you relocate them, attracting Zwats to your wildlife habitat will help keep the beautiful flying monkey population in check.

Flying monkeys are so popular in the garden now, there is even garden art in their likeness.  Do you have flying monkeys?

Helen  Yoest is a garden writer, speaker and garden coach through her business Gardening with Confidence™.

Follow Helen on Twitter @HelenYoest and her facebook Friend’s page, Helen Yoest; or facebook Like page, Gardening With Confidence™

Helen is a field editor for Better Homes and Gardens and Country Gardens magazine and she also serves on the board of advisors for the JC Raulston Arboretum.

AND

Helen is the founder, publisher and editor of:
Tarheel Gardening – your online resource for North Carolina gardening enthusiasts.

You can follow Tarheel Gardener.com on Twitter @TarheelGardenin and on facebook at Tarheel Gardening.com.

When we lived in Oz, flying monkeys were as common as a horse of a different color.  On summer evenings, flying monkeys could be observed flying the skies; sometimes with determination in their wings, but more often than not, just frolicking about doing nose dives, relays, and various other antics.  On evenings with a full moon, their silhouettes were particularly impressive.

Beautiful flying monkeys are very loyal wildlife.  Once established in your wildlife habitat,    if conditions are right, they will stay year round.  It’s also possible to train flying monkeys  to feed out of your hands.  This takes some time to gain their confidence, but it’s very doable.   The best approach I’ve found, is to wear a monkey disguise while putting out lettuce, aged fruit, or other veggies from the fridge.  Each day, put the food a little closer to your home, so they eventually get use to your up-close presence.

By doing this for about about a month, I was able to have the flying monkeys feed from my hands.  When we were in Oz, the flying monkeys were so tamed, my kids were able to dress the flying monkeys in costumes.  They seemed to have a preference to a military style look with a bit of red.

When fellow wildlife gardener from Mr. McGregor’s Daugher visited, she was able to get close to the flying monkeys in just a week’s time.

When another friend, Layanee DeMerchant of Ledge and Gardens visited, she was so inspired by the flying monkeys, she was motivated to get her hands on anything monkey and sent me these coffee mugs.

Because of their fierce loyalty, if you are upset over someone and ask a flying monkey to intervene, they will.  So be careful what you wish for.  This can give your flying monkeys a bad rap.  Need to remind you of the incident with Dorothy and her ruby slippers?

HABITAT

Mostly nocturnal, flying monkeys travel in packs.  When attracting flying monkeys, you are more likely to have 20 flying monkeys than the occasional one stopping by.  Preferring the tops of trees, flying monkeys have also adapted to open land, forests, and suburban neighborhoods.

FOOD

Flying monkeys are omnivores, preferring aroids such as Dracunculus vulgaris, also known as a Voodoo lily or stink lily and the insects they attract, pollinators such as flies, wasps, and beetles.  During the winter months when Voodoo lilies aren’t available, they will feed on dried grasses and hibernating insects.

NEST

Flying monkeys are cavity dwellers; however, they have adapted well due to their declining natural habitats and will also will make a nest from sticks and twigs.

COLLECTING CONFIDENCE

One summer back in Oz, during mating season, a male flying monkey came into the house through an open window.  If he wasn’t as scared as the rest of us, the fright of seeing a monkey flying throughout the house could have left a negative mark on our adventures of attracting beautiful wildlife flying monkeys.  As such, it is recommended to keep your windows and doors closed during the late spring when they breed.

Zwats are natural predators to flying monkeys.  So if you find you have a problem with too many flying monkeys and can’t find a service to help you relocate them, attracting Zwats to your wildlife habitat will help keep the beautiful flying monkey population in check.

Helen  Yoest is a garden writer, speaker and garden coach through her business Gardening with Confidence™.

Follow Helen on Twitter @HelenYoest and her facebook Friend’s page, Helen Yoest; or facebook Like page, Gardening With Confidence™

Helen is a field editor for Better Homes and Gardens and Country Gardens magazine and she also serves on the board of advisors for the JC Raulston Arboretum.

AND

Helen is the founder, publisher and editor of:
Tarheel Gardening – your online resource for North Carolina gardening enthusiasts.

You can follow Tarheel Gardener.com on Twitter @TarheelGardenin and on facebook at Tarheel Gardening.com.

Mealworm farm

For many years, we’ve kept mealworms at the ready for the bluebirds.  Purchased from a bird store and stored in the fridge, they could always be found next to the yogurt.  It wasn’t until we rescued a green anole, during a summer vacation, that we considered growing our own mealworms – for him, but then later for the bluebirds.

For full disclosure, I use the term we loosely; in this case the we is my husband, with me as the little mouse in his pocket. He’s the one who is into this.

My husband’s motivation was for Salvo, our green anole. His success motivated me to make more mealworms for the bluebirds. And if you’re wondering, it isn’t gross at all.

Mealworms are the larvae of the darkling beetle, Tenebrio molitor. They appear to be nocturnal, preferring a dark environment. The lifecycle of Tenebrio molitor is an egg, larva, pupa, and beetle stage. Mealworms are favored by bluebirds and other insect-eating birds. Bluebirds will actually eat any stage in the darkling beetle lifecycle; but only adults if they aren’t too hard.

Farming our own mealworms became a natural extension of our backyard wildlife care, freed the fridge space, and saved us a lot of money.

WHAT YOU WILL NEED to start your own mealworm farm:

Mealworm farm's start with adult beetles

Two containers. Any handy container, 8 – 10 inches deep, with smooth sides, will work; they won’t crawl out. We use five-gallon buckets because we already had them on hand.

Enough bedding material (which is also the food source) to add 2 – 3 inches in each container. We use oatmeal.

Decent size potato (or apples will work too) for moisture. Replace when moldy.

~ 20 meal worms to start the farm. If you can start your farm with adult beetles, you will cut at least 6 weeks time for mealworm production.

HOW-TO

Fill the bottom 2 – 3 inches of one container with oatmeal.

Cut a potato in half (long ways) and add to the container fresh cut side down. This will be their water source.

Place in a dark area and keep at room temperature or warmer. We keep ours in a utility area.

We understand that adult beetles eat their own eggs. So we separate the adults from the eggs. Giving the adults enough time to lay eggs, at about 2 weeks after the beetles appear, we transfer the beetles to another similar container, where they can lay more eggs without eating the ones they just laid.  The second container can wait to be filled when these adults are ready to be transferred.  It will take about 3 months to get a good production of mealworms started. This time is made up as 6 weeks from the time the mealworms are added to the bucket until mealworms pupate and about another 6 weeks (or more depending on the temperatures) to become adults.

We check on them from time to time adding fresh potato and apple, and transferring the adults. For our farm production level, it is relatively low maintenance. With our initial 20 mealworms we are able to maintain enough population for our needs, or I should say, for Salvo and the bluebird’s needs.

There is more in-depth how-to grow your own mealworms available.Before we began, we researched how-tos on-line. Using available information, we then fine tuned, through trial and error, the how-to for our specific circumstances. For example, our research recommended keeping the growing site humid. In our area of Raleigh, we are naturally humid, so we didn’t worry too much about adding humidity. However, if you live in a drier climate, you should add a wet sponge to increase the humidity.

For our home use, we find the farming of mealworms easy to do and a no biggy in the add-on of chores and responsibilities. Salvo and the bluebirds seem to appreciate our efforts.

Helen  Yoest is a garden writer, speaker and garden coach through her business Gardening with Confidence™.

Follow Helen on Twitter @HelenYoest and her facebook Friend’s page, Helen Yoest; or facebook Like page, Gardening With Confidence™

Helen is a field editor for Better Homes and Gardens and Country Gardens magazine and she also serves on the board of advisors for the JC Raulston Arboretum.

AND

Helen is the founder, publisher and editor of:
Tarheel Gardening – your online resource for North Carolina gardening enthusiasts.

You can follow Tarheel Gardener.com on Twitter @TarheelGardenin and on facebook at Tarheel Gardening.com.

We are so fortunate to be able to garden year round in the Raleigh area. I’m sharing the story below from  the current issue of Triangle Gardener magazine.  This gives just a taste of what we can grow in our area with particular interest in providing cover and food for the wildlife.

Winter Wonders – plants for wildlife

Flowers, berries, evergreens and grasses will fill the winter garden with wildlife and give you reason to walk around.

One of the best parts about living in the Triangle are winters worthy of gardening.  In winter, it is more about admiring the garden and the wildlife it brings, than worrying about weeds.  While your winter flowering trees and shrubs are in bloom, the weeds sleep.

Designing a wildlife friendly garden by adding water, food, cover and a place to raise their young, will help entice your wildlife to stay in the garden year ‘round.

Particularly in the winter, providing plants for a wide range of food sources and cover, will keep your wildlife coming back to feed and feel safe.

FOOD

There are many sources of food for wildlife in winter, including seed, nectar, pollen, berries and nuts.

With a wide variety of cultivars to choose from, the winter flowering, evergreen shrub, Camellia japonica, provide nectar on a day warm enough to move a bee, as do Mahonia and wintersweet (Chimonanthus).  So do flowering apricot trees (Prunus Mume), and perennials such as Hellebores, adding gorgeous flowers to your winter landscape.

With just a few varieties, your winter garden can be filled with blooming flowers all season long.

Many birds will be happy to find Ilex verticillata ‘Winter Red’ holly growing in your garden.  It’s not uncommon to have a a flock of cedar waxwings dine on these and other species of holly berries, as well as, Eastern dogwood, junipers and fruits, such as cherries.  Robins, bluebirds, and thrushes will also find protein rich winter berries the perfect meal.

Crab apple (Malus spp.) can be quite showy in the winter landscape and also provide food for many birds.

COVER

When wildlife feed, having cover near by provides protection, creating a safe haven for your wildlife.

Dense, low growing ground covers such as a creeping yew (Cephalotaxus harringtonia ‘Prostrata’) provides winter shelter for many birds.

Tall protective grasses like Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’ and Muhly grass (Muhlenbergia capillaris), left uncut, add interest in the winter garden, as well as, cover for many wildlife.  Native switch grass, Panicum virgatum ‘Shenandoah’, can grow 4 foot tall with a nice blond winter color.

DOUBLE DUTY

Often times, plants will do double duty providing both food and cover. Viburnum tinus, Spring Bouquet ‘Compactum’, offers berries for birds and quick cover, when needed.

It’s worth noting, most double flowers are actually of little use to bees and other insects as many of these new cultivars are bred with the pollen bearing anthers replaced by extra petals. Others are just too ornate for the bees to get to the nectar.  A good example of this is the Camellia japonica cultivar ‘Governor Mouton’.  Indeed, a beautiful flower and worthy of growing in the winter wildlife garden.  But while this Camellia may not have nectar readily available, the ‘Governor Mouton’ will still provided cover for the wildlife and be gorgeous to boot.

Although not all winter plants provide food for wildlife, every evergreen tree and shrub does provide cover.  Choose plants that provide food and cover for your wintertime enjoyment and also enjoy the wildlife they bring.

COME ON OUT TO SEE ME!

Join Helen Yoest at the JC Raulston Arboretum for the Winter Lecture and Tour,  February 13, 2011.  Helen’s talk on Winter Wonders for the garden that also attract wildlife, begins at 1:00 AM followed by a winter garden tour.

The Arboretum is located at 4415 Beryl Road in Raleigh, North Carolina. For more information call the JC Raulston Arboretum at (919) 515-3132 or visit their website at:  JC Raulston Arboretum

Helen  Yoest is a garden writer, speaker and garden coach through her business Gardening with Confidence™.

Follow Helen on Twitter @HelenYoest and her facebook Friend’s page, Helen Yoest; or facebook Like page, Gardening With Confidence™

Helen is a field editor for Better Homes and Gardens and Country Gardens magazine and she also serves on the board of advisors for the JC Raulston Arboretum.

AND

Helen is the founder, publisher and editor of:
Tarheel Gardening – your online resource for North Carolina gardening enthusiasts.

You can follow Tarheel Gardener.com on Twitter @TarheelGardenin and on facebook at Tarheel Gardening.com.

The single bluebird drops down to sip the water from a ground-level bath near the curb. A sip. Returning to the wire. Dropping down for another sip. And returning, again, to the wire. After each visit to the birdbath, the bluebird looks around to see if he’s safe.

The site of the bluebird signals us to be still, mother and son, side by side,  no words spoken. Intuitively, we are speaking the language of wildlife.

Today, the sport’s practice (for which we arrived a few minutes late) has been forgotten, but the 10 minutes spent watching the bluebird, stays with us today.

Many times since that first sighting, we have spotted bluebirds perched on the utility wire.  When put into clearer context, this sighting seems out of character for the bluebird, but they have obviously accepted our neighborhood, and certainly our garden, as home.

The utility wire parallels the curb in front of our house.  Most of the neighborhood has underground utilities, save half of our street.

We live on a cul-de-sac and where our property line begins, the utility lines rise 32 feet above the ground to finish out the houses with a concentrated mass of wires at the curve of the cul-de-sac.

I’ve often wondered the purpose of this. Did the developer run out of money? Or perhaps there was a reason – technology based – that the wires could not make the curve underground. Or maybe it was a maintenance issue having underground utilities concentrated underground in a curve. In any event, we have the perfect perch for birds coming and going to our garden safely viewing their territory far and wide.

There was a time when the bluebird was as common as a robin. The loss of their nesting sites (natural cavities) and the indiscriminate use of pesticides, plus competition from house sparrows and starlings, caused the loss of 90% of the bluebird population.

The population has begun to recover through initiatives from the North American Bluebird Society and local activists helping communities build bluebird trails.

Insects are a bluebird’s primary source of food during the spring, summer, and fall. So, as you can imagine, we don’t spray pesticides which could kill their food source. If we do spray, it is with discrimination choosing to use organic products first. During the winter when insects are not readily available, you’ll find the bluebirds eating berries.

Bluebirds are cavity dwellers making them the perfect candidate for birdhouses. Our property is a half acre suburban plot with a lot of open space; open space is the natural habitat of bluebirds.

In our area, bluebirds begin to look for nesting sites sooner than they will actually use it. Very territorial, bluebirds like to locate early to ensure they find good digs. It may take a male bluebird several days and sometimes weeks, to find a suitable nesting site. Then it may take weeks before the building of the nest is started. In our area of North Carolina, we can see the bluebirds begin looking for a nesting site as early as February.

We have 3 bluebird houses on our property. Two in the back and one in the front. Ideally, bluebirds don’t want neighbors within 100 yards; however, we were able to configure our nesting boxes to maximize the lay of the land.

Nest are made from weed stems, grass, pine straw and lined with fine, dry grass. It normally takes 5 to 6 days for the bluebird to build the nest. The making of a nest is timed to be ready 4 to 5 days before the female bluebird lays her first egg.

One egg is laid each day until a clutch of 3 to 6 eggs are laid with an average of 4 or 5 pale blue eggs. The incubation period is 14 days and the brood will stay in the nest for the next 17 to 18 days.

Here is where we humans come in. Monitor the nests often. When the brood fledge (leaves the nest) remove the old nest so the bluebird parents can start again. Bluebirds will begin building a new nest for a new brood within 3 to 4 days.

With good monitoring and housekeeping, bluebirds can have 3 broods during the nesting season.

COLLECTING CONFIDENCE
Bluebirds are insect eaters and will hang around your garden even more if you put out mealworms. During the spring, summer,and fall, there should be plenty of insects to feed the bluebirds.   In the absence of insects, bluebirds will eat berries, especially during the winter.  The greatest advantage to using supplemental feeders is they can be placed in a location outside for easy viewing inside.  Place your feeders to be viewed from a comfortable chair, or as we do, to be viewed  as we  gather around the kitchen table.

When we first move into your home, we inherited a porcelain vine. At the time, I didn’t know what it was nor did I know of it’s invasiveness.  Since moving here in 1997, I have spent a good bit of time, every year, trying to remove porcelain vine from my property. The only redeeming fact about porcelain vine is that the bluebirds love it. But with that, they drop the seed of this invasive, non-native plant, causing it to spread everywhere.

Don’t be fooled by the pretty blue berries in the fall. This plant will take over your garden choking out your native food sources and other desirable.

Do you speak the language of wildlife – standing still to enjoy a quiet moment outside?

Helen  Yoest is a garden writer, speaker and garden coach through her business Gardening with Confidence™.

Follow Helen on Twitter @HelenYoest and her facebook Friend’s page, Helen Yoest; or facebook Like page, Gardening With Confidence™

Helen is a field editor for Better Homes and Gardens and Country Gardens magazine and she also serves on the board of advisors for the JC Raulston Arboretum.

AND

Helen is the founder, publisher and editor of:
Tarheel Gardening – your online resource for North Carolina gardening enthusiasts.

You can follow Tarheel Gardener.com on Twitter @TarheelGardenin and on facebook at Tarheel Gardening.com.

There has never been a time I didn’t marvel at a daddy longleg.  Even today, I took the time to check this guy out when I saw him in the beautiful wildlife garden.

Perhaps it’s from sheer amazement for this creature — with out-of-proportion legs to their little bodies.  I often imagined alien craft for SyFy movies used these guys as design inspiration.

Even with a life-long fascination for daddy longlegs, it wasn’t until today that I actually learned about the harvestman.  As I began to research this critter, I soon realized there were many qualifiers to understand.  The quick solution, contact a credible source for help.  As such, I turned to my friend Debbie Hadley who has answered more than one questions for me about insects.
In fact, that is exactly who she is – About Insects

So I addressed my question to Debbie.

Helen – Debbie, I see there is more than one spider referred to as a daddy longlegs.  Can you please tell me what I have in the photo?

Debbie – You do, indeed, have a daddy longlegs, also called a harvestman. People use the name daddy longlegs to refer to three different bugs: harvestman, cellar spiders, and crane flies. The harvestman is an arachnid, but is not a true spider. It belongs to the order Opiliones.

There are several differences between harvestmen and spiders. First, the harvestman’s body is fused together into one section. Spiders have a distinct separation between the abdomen and the cephalothorax. The harvestman has just two eyes (visible in your photo as a tiny pair of black dots near the front end), while spiders have eight. Harvestmen do not produce silk, while spiders do. Perhaps the most interesting distinction is that harvestmen males have penises (spiders use an indirect method of sperm transfer, and don’t have penises)!

Worldwide, there are over 6,400 species of Opilionids living in all kinds of habitats. Many are omnivorous, feeding on small insects, bits of plants, and even fungi. Some scavenge decaying plant material, dead insects, or even feces. Many people believe that daddy longlegs are highly venomous, but have fangs too short to puncture human skin. This is entirely false. Harvestmen are not venomous at all, and can do no harm to people or pets. They’re quite beneficial arachnids, actually.

Thank you Debbie for your help to identify and learn about daddy longlegs.

Check out these two stories by Debbie on daddy longlegs:

What Is a Daddy Longlegs If It’s Not a Spider?
Is a Daddy Longlegs Venomous?

You can follow Debbie Hadley on Twitter @Aboutinsects

I have found that a quick tweet to Debbie with a photo resulted in answers faster than Google!

Thanks Debbie!

Helen Yoest is a garden writer and coach through her business Gardening with Confidence™.

Follow Helen on Twitter @HelenYoest and her facebook friend’s page, Helen Yoest or Gardening With Confidence™ Face Book Like Page.

Each week, Helen host’s a garden talk WebTalkRadio.net show called Gardening With Confidence™.

Helen also serves on the board of advisors for the JC Raulston Arboretum

On a swing-set located in a suburban backyard, two little children, Lily and Aster, play.  They have great adventures on their swing-set. Each day after school, time is spent with each other; often, they are joined by their wildlife friends.

There are bluebirds and cardinals and a black-capped chickadee.  The robin dances on the ground looking for earth worms. A bumble bee’s bottom is all they can see with her nose so deep in the flower.   But today was extra special. It was almost missed.  Lily and Aster spied a box turtle (genus Terrapene) chomping her way through the compost pile.

The visiting box turtle was unmistakable, with her domed shell, hinged at the bottom.This hinged bottom allows the box turtle to close herself off from predators.  Lily and Aster remember reading on the internet about the box turtle’s life span lasting a average of 40 years.  They wonder if this visiting box turtle  has been in the garden all this time.

While Lily and Aster reel in delight, they bestow a name on their new wildlife friend, Boxy.  They know a box turtle can easily be confused and not know where they are.  They know not to touch the box turtle, remembering that even though they’re cute, they are a wild creature.  Too much handling by humans and being re-located can cause too much stress for the box turtle.

When box turtles are young they eat meat.  Their enhanced ability to see and smell, helps them find their favorite foods like snails, insects, fish and frogs.  Aster worries about the frogs he has in the fountain basin, but Lily reminds him that life abounds, all around and Boxy needs to eat too.

When box turtles get older, they tend to eat more fruits, roots, and flowers.  They also like tomatoes.

As Lily and Aster watch Boxy, they relish this time together.  Even keeping a box turtle for a short period of time is not healthy for a box turtle.  They understand and respect this.  As with so many of their wildlife friends, their “pets” run and fly free in the garden.  Each day bringing a surprise of who may stop by for a visit.  As they run off to share the new of Boxy with their mom, Lily and Aster hope Boxy will be back tomorrow.

Book of Six© Six Garden Pest a Box Turtle Eats

Helen Yoest is a garden writer and coach through her business Gardening with Confidence™

Follow Helen on Twitter @HelenYoest and her facebook friend’s page, Helen Yoest or Gardening With Confidence™ Face Book Fan Page.

Helen also serves on the board of advisors for the JC Raulston Arboretum

National Wildlife Association Gold Metal Native Picks

Helen Yoest is a garden writer and coach through her business Gardening with Confidence™

Follow Helen on Twitter @HelenYoest and her facebook friend’s page, Helen Yoest or Gardening With Confidence™ Face Book Fan Page.

Helen also serves on the board of advisors for the JC Raulston Arboretum

Here’s what  says Annie Guilfoyle, KLC School of Design says:

Wildlife and teaching gardens are a really hot topic – we will see more of a change in the way that children connect with nature. It’s very exciting and encouraging for the future.

Helen Yoest is a garden writer and coach through her business Gardening with Confidence™

Follow Helen on Twitter @HelenYoest and her facebook friend’s page, Helen Yoest or Gardening With Confidence™ Face Book Fan Page.

Helen also serves on the board of advisors for the JC Raulston Arboretum

Finishing up after a day in the garden, a glass of wine in hand, I sit hard on the back porch chase.  Ah, I say a little more loudly than necessary.   I thought the need to express myself mattered only to me.  It’s the sound of a good day in the garden.\’a0 At the sound, Lily perks up.  She knows by the sound, I’m available.

From the moment born, Lily has loved flowers. Perhaps it’s her destiny.  A smart girl at nine, she knows I may not put a puzzle together with her, and knows I definitely won’t play card games of any kind, but she has learned to ask me to stroll around the garden, something I’ve never refused. Today is no different. Even without the taste of my first sip, I happily agree to join her.

Taking her little hand in mine, we start our journey before ever leaving the stone floor of the covered porch.   As Lily points out a humming bird and butterfly, I find I’m watching Lily as her eyes brighten up at the bold colors of the wildlife entering the garden.  Her delight is my delight.  And so we begin our evening walk

As we journey down the garden path, we pretend we are the wildlife entering the garden. We see what the birds, bees and butterflies see.   We go to plants that entice us to take our noses and bury them deep in the flower’s nectar.

We share stories of friends, foods, and flowers. This time together is uninterrupted; we cannot hear if the dryer buzzer blares or if the phone rings.  We are alone. It is our special time together.   As Lily chatters, I reflect on why I garden.

Gardening provides me relaxation, creativity, beauty, and the satisfaction of knowing I’m making a difference in the one little plot of land that is in my care.  Without the garden, the kids wouldn’t have secret spaces to venture into or value the earth in her abundance.\’a0 First hand knowledge is second nature to them.   Even though I gardened for decades before the kids came along, I now garden for us.  For these moments.

My mind comes back to the reality of Lily’s chatter as she asks me,  Do you think my hair makes my head look like a triangle?No way,  I said.  But if it did, you would be in good company, do you see the shape of the Praying Mantid’s head?  Here’s one; look closely.  And so it goes on our evening stroll.

Why I garden was submitted to M.A. Newcomer over at Idaho Gardener for a contest. Head on over HERE and give her your reasons to garden.  It was fun figuring out why I garden.

This is my second of these kind of blogger writing contests. The first was at Garden Rant for their 99 word fiction contest. I wrote
Nature’s Way, Simplified.   I didn’t win anything, but sure did enjoy writing it.

<Helen  Yoest is a garden writer, speaker and garden coach through her business Gardening with Confidence™.

Follow Helen on Twitter @HelenYoest and her facebook Friend’s page, Helen Yoest; or facebook Like page, Gardening With Confidence™

Helen is a field editor for Better Homes and Gardens and Country Gardens magazine and she also serves on the board of advisors for the JC Raulston Arboretum.