#GardenGloggersGhallenge – Post 1

The folks at GardenComm tossed out a garden bloggers challenge for the month of May.

They’ve listed posting prompts for every day in the month of May. I’m already four days behind, or more positively stated, I’ve decided to save you some extra emails by doing several prompts at a time.

Ready for the first five prompts?

For May 1, the prompt was Garden for Wildlife Month – how do you support wildlife in your garden?

The simple answer is I provide large shrubs for shelter, trees for nesting, and pawpaws for late summer eating. Some years I also plant corn for their summer feasting.

I also never harvest the serviceberries for myself, not because I am lazy, but because I know the birds love them. In the wintertime, I also put out bird feeders and usually remember to keep them filled with bird seed.

But maybe it is more what I don’t do in my garden that supports them? I don’t get too upset if they tramble the tulips, dig a little in the yard, and leave some scat beside the house. I also don’t use pesticides.

Of course, I have my limits. No wildlife allowed in the garage, and moles are asked to go elsewhere too. I also don’t chase that feral cat away all the time because I think it has reduced the vole population a bit, and I’m not seeing as many rabbits these days. (Having written that, I expect to see a bunch of rabbits now, all eating away in the vegetable garden.)

Anyway, how I support wildlife is live and let live, as long as things don’t get too out of control out there.

Let’s move on to May 2 and the prompt of what is my favorite garden “chore.” They put the quotes around the word chore, not me! I love to go plant shopping. How’s that for a chore? I love to visit family-owned greenhouses and go to farmers markets and other places where I might find something just a little bit different.

Of course, I’m not opposed to shopping for plants at big box stores and giant hardware stores that start with “M,” “L,” and “HD,” but I’m more selective at those places and look for stuff “just off the truck” that hasn’t been too picked over.

I also like to mow the lawn, which leads directly into the prompt for May 3rd, National Garden Meditation Day. What meditative. spaces have you created or plan to create in your garden?

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that one of the aspects of mowing that I love is that it is a meditative exercise, especially when you know your lawn because you’ve been mowing it for over 25 years and don’t have to think about where to mow next or in which direction.

But I suspect less open-minded people might not consider the lawn a meditative space, so there are also some chairs out in the garden that are lovely to sit in at the end of the day.

But I won’t be sitting on those chairs or mowing the lawn today, May 4, because this is National Weather Observers Day and today’s prompt is “what is the weather like in your garden?”

It’s rainy this morning with nearly an inch of rain in the rain gauge. I record that in my CoCaRaHs app, like I do every day through the growing season, not just so I can remember, but so that others will have the data for their studies.

One last prompt, which is really for tomorrow, May 5th. What are my favorite garden or flower photos? It all depends! I remember once visiting Gibbs Garden in Georgia in the pouring rain, while at a GardenComm event. I thought some of the photos I took in their Japanese garden in the rain were some of the best pictures of a garden I’d ever taken.

Those photos are a good reminder that gardens are beautiful in all kinds of weather, including rainy weather.

Or maybe it would be pictures of pansies, violas, and violets? You know I love them!

Or maybe it is just the latest picture of something that caught my attention out in the garden like this picture from yesterday of lilacs in bloom.

Of course, I cheated a little bit in choosing that “last” picture. The last picture I took yesterday was of a book, The Years in My Herb Garden by Helen M. Fox, from 1953. But discussion about that book will have to wait for the prompts of May 8th or maybe May 14th.

Come back to see what those prompts are.

If you have a blog, feel free to join in the #gardenbloggerschallenge yourself. It’s kind of fun and if you are at a loss for ideas on what to post about on a given day, they have included some good ones.

Now, if you have a computer (you do, you are reading this!), you can also go over to YouTube to watch my interview about Lost Ladies of Garden Writing with Noel Kingsbury and his friends Claire and Richard. We had a grand time, I think! (Again, that link is here.)