Here’s the second set of pages I did in Linelle’s dark circle journal book. I’m really enjoying doing fanged flowers lately. I’m not sure what that means.
Maybe I’m wishing that some of my plants would grow teeth, and snap at people who invade my garden. I have a very shallow front yard, so the front window next to my monitor is maybe 12 feet from the sidewalk. I can see people walk by, and if the window is open, I can hear what they’re saying. Usually, “oh, that’s pretty” while pointing at something that’s blooming. Yesterday, a little boy came running up, and yelled back to his parents, “we should do this to our front yard”. I like those people.
The people I don’t like:
- People who walk into the yard to take pictures. Usually teenagers, but not always. I don’t mind if they photograph things from the sidewalk, but when they walk up the paths to the front door, it annoys me. My front yard is not the botanical garden.
- People who gawk with their mouths open. Several times this week, couples walked by, and just stopped and stared. Didn’t say anything. Just stared, and then wandered off.
- People who pick flowers, or try to pick them, because if I see them reach out, I yell out the window not to. Last year, I went out to do some errands, and while I was gone, some idiot cut all the blooming stalks off my red yucca, which is in a raised bed, six feet from the sidewalk. It’s a plant that blooms once a year, and produces long, showy stalks with red flowers on them. They last a really long time, and the stalks can stay on the plant until I clean up the yard in the fall. In the interim, they attract birds, especially hummingbirds. It burns my butt when someone disrupts plants that attract bees, butterflies, or birds. My front yard is designed as a habitat for them, and picking flowers disrupts the flow of food to them. Also, it’s just plain rude to pick flowers from someone else’s yard.
- People who say that it must take a lot of water to maintain all those plants. Nope. They’re all native and naturalized species, chosen for their low water use. Because they’re not all cactus, people assume they need to be watered. I usually water in August, when it’s blazing hot—but even then, only once a week, because the plants naturally go a little dormant when it’s too hot. As soon as it rains, or the heat breaks, they burst into bloom again. All in all, I water considerably less than my neighbor with the perfect green lawn—and I have birds and butterflies in my yard, while he has fire ants.
Yeah. I’m that cranky lady with the garden…