and my Wild Garden
About ten years ago I acquired a house with a small bit of land in the urban neighborhood of Silver Spring, Maryland. After about a year of mowing that land, my mom made a comment about how she couldn’t believe I wasn’t at least growing some garlic. So, off to the hardware store I went in search of some garden shoes, because you can’t garden without garden shoes. Well, after looking for some time I finally asked the clerk who in his thick British accent told me to just wear old tennis shoes. So, I went home, put on my old running shoes and went out to make a garden.
I’ll try not to go into my lesson-filled journey through the years too much, only to say it was very lesson-filled covering areas of growing vegetables, learning about soil, dealing with pests and finally getting swept away by the native plant movement spurred by Doug Tallamy (who I actually met but was too star struck to form words). During this mostly research filled learning process, I began noticing plants in my garden that I didn’t plant. Some were invasive but most were actual native plants that somehow found their way into my garden. After learning what these plants were, I let them grow to the point they’ve pretty much taken over my entire garden. To learn more about the amazing wild transformation my garden has gone through, read this post.
A few years ago, my husband bought me a high-end camera and macro lens which I’ve been using obsessively to document living things (and sometimes dead) in my garden. I love discovering new things and learning about them and why they’re in my garden. It’s great fun and I hope to inspire others to catch the “wild” bug too.
Contact me at maragay69@gmail.com
The Dirty Sneaker 