Greetings

[CompulsiveGardener]

Hello,
I have been lurking for a while and finally decided to introduce myself.

I live in the upper Midwest and have been seeking a simple, meaningful life for decades. I think it began about a year after I started my first "real" job out of grad school (I'm an engineer and spent about 12 years working in various ridiculously high-stress jobs that generally left me dissatisfied with selling my time as well as my health to make crap that no one needed on a rushed schedule that really didn't matter).

I read most of the simple living canon in the late 90s. I went back to those books time and again (from the library, of course).

I work in education now and it is more satisfying, less stressful, and poorly compensated, but I have a chunk of time off each summer that will probably keep me there until I can retire. That time, of course, is for gardening and being outside.

I look forward to joining your conversations!

[rosarugosa]

Welcome CompulsiveGardener! It sounds like you've made some good choices in terms of quality of life. What is the focus of your gardening efforts?

[pinkytoe]

Nice to have another compulsive gardener stop by. It is definitely an obsession for some of us.

[CompulsiveGardener]

My gardening is a little of everything... I have a vegetable/fruit garden that is at the moment overrun by kale, milkweed, and mosquitoes... I was out of town for a couple of weeks at the worst time, and it's been a very, very wet spring. So, because of the mosquitoes, I'm letting the garden go at this time and working on indoor projects for a few weeks. My favorite fruit to grow is black raspberries, and they are abundant this year. I also have red currants, gooseberries, honeyberries, strawberries, and native plums. For landscaping, I take over more space from "lawn" (it's mostly creeping charlie) each year. The shade trees in the yard have grown substantially since we moved in, so these days I'm mostly adding native shade plants.

[iris lilies]

Yep, lily obsessed here.

I won several awards for this set of iilies at this weekend’s Iowa show.
5970

[rosarugosa]

Congratulations, IL!

[catherine]

Welcome, CG!

I am a home gardener, too! I have vegetables and perennials--I try to keep the plantings native, so I, too have milkweed as well as other New England natives like rudbeckia and echinacea. I do grow a couple of fruits--strawberries, apples, Monmorency cherries. Like you, Creeping Charlie is definitely creeping around in my lawn, and so is clover! Teaching is a great choice of career for a gardener!

[early morning]

Hi, CG! Sounds like you've found a good niche. I like gardens and native plants, but I'm pretty lazy, so mostly we just have "messy" landscapes, lol. iris, congrats! Those lilies look amazing! I mostly have daylilies - they are easier. no staking needed!! But I must admit, they are not nearly as stunning as some of the Asiatics.

[happystuff]

Welcome, CG!

[CompulsiveGardener]

Welcome, CG!

I am a home gardener, too! I have vegetables and perennials--I try to keep the plantings native, so I, too have milkweed as well as other New England natives like rudbeckia and echinacea. I do grow a couple of fruits--strawberries, apples, Monmorency cherries. Like you, Creeping Charlie is definitely creeping around in my lawn, and so is clover! Teaching is a great choice of career for a gardener!

Sadly, my Montmorency cherry, as well as my Harelson and Paula Red apple trees, all succombed to fire blight.
The birds and I used to race for the cherries!

[CompulsiveGardener]

Hi, CG! Sounds like you've found a good niche. I like gardens and native plants, but I'm pretty lazy, so mostly we just have "messy" landscapes, lol. iris, congrats! Those lilies look amazing! I mostly have daylilies - they are easier. no staking needed!! But I must admit, they are not nearly as stunning as some of the Asiatics.

I have plenty of daylilies and other easy plants to fill in the landscape and add different colors. I planted crocus right into my front lawn, and they bloom and are done long before the grass awakens from winter.

One way I like to use the 'easy' plants (daylilies, hosta, wild geranium, bee balm, native sunflower, and more) is to fill in areas I have recently reclaimed from lawn until I find new plants I want to add. They quickly establish a sort of frame, so that the space looks landscaped while I'm still working on it.

I mostly add new spaces by covering the lawn with cardboard or old cotton clothing that is suitable for nothing except the rag bin, and then about 4 inches of mulch (which I can haul for free from a county site). The cotton clothing lasts longer as a weed barried than cardboard, and those areas are generally available for planting a year later.

[catherine]

Sadly, my Montmorency cherry, as well as my Harelson and Paula Red apple trees, all succombed to fire blight.
The birds and I used to race for the cherries!

I have a solo cup filled with cherries we picked today. The pickin's are slim thanks to the birds. I even saw a chipmunk in the tree eating them.

[Selah]

Welcome, CompulsiveGardener! Michigan-raised here (Ann Arbor) now living in the Great American Southwest. I loved gardening when I was growing up--although it was just basically following my mom's orders. I envy you--I love the Southwest, but where I live, it is absolute crap for gardening Midwest-style--and Southwest-style, too! :confused:

[Rogar]

I've used a similar method to get rid of some traditional lawn. Cardboard topped with mulch and I've heard that newspapers also work. I have to say after a year or two the decomposing sod makes for some good organics. I originally had a plan to replace with all natives, but that soon became unrealistic, mostly due to availability, and I've settled for things from the southwest somewhere. It's taken a while to get everything established, but I have something in bloom from the early spring to fall along a 15 foot strip of the front yard. It has has low water requirements , but I've learned that "perennial" is something of a misnomer. There's always something that doesn't make it through the winter or just is old. At the foot of the Rockies but still in the arid southwest.

Plus a mid-sized vegetable garden, some raised bed, some in ground. After a few years of replacing rotting boards in a 4x4 square foot raised bed, I bought a 6x2 foot "Vego-garden" metal raised bed and filled it with primo but expensive raised bed soil. Tomatoes are liking it a lot.