Having had such great success with last year’s fish garden, I decided to employ an extremely reluctant Gabe to create a wildflower meadow in the back part of my yard.
Gabe griped and griped after the first spring mowing about how difficult it was to mow the back half of the yard. Admittedly, the back half of the yard is a disaster. It is sandy soil that the dog loves to dig giant holes in. Josiah and I periodically refill these holes with wheelbarrows full of clay soil from the front half of the yard where (for some reason or another) I need to create new garden beds full of roses and perennials. All the subtraction and addition of soil has created a bumpy mounded backyard landscape of difficult to mow weeds.
I assured Gabe that I could cure his mowing difficulties as soon as he learned to operate a rototiller.
Then, in early spring I did something I regret. Because the whole area was taken over by creeping charlie and I wanted my wildflower seeds to have a chance to grow, I sprayed roundup over the entire area. I try never to use herbicide or insecticide or any type of cide because I figure it’s going to eventually kill me, the insects, the animals, the birds, and the land. Cide is from the Latin root which means “killer.” There are many, many good reasons to avoid cides. Unfortunately, there are four plants that bring out the killer in me: creeping charlie, vinca, my neighbor’s honeysuckle, and poison ivy. I should have listened to my inner “save the earth” Aussie voice. Instead, I listened to my American “Go Ahead, Make My Day” voice and killed everything growing in the area.
The next day I became violently ill with a stomach virus that had been working its way through the family. I thought, “Serves me right.”
Then I swore, “Never again.”
Dale keeps asking me to buy him some weed and feed for the front lawn. Somehow, I keep forgetting.
Anyway, with the back part of the yard mostly dead, Gabe got his chance to rototill. At 13, Gabe is convinced that he should be able to do something easily right from the start and when rototilling proved a skill needing some finesse, he declared that it would never work. His mother, however, does not let him quit no matter how much he beefs. Eventually he got the hang of it.
I relocated several plants from my garden beds to the wildflower meadow: coneflowers that were (as always) not in the correct location, ornamental grasses that Dale had mowed over twice, and anthemis ‘susanna mitchell’ which makes me mad every year when immediately after blooming, it flops over.
Then, I spread compost, cutting garden and wildflower seeds over the area. I seeded two crossing paths with fescue in the futile hope that if the dog has a path to walk on, he won’t crash through and dig up the rest of the meadow. Next I had to tamp the seeds into the soil. Wise people own a seed roller. Meticulous people rake the ground flat enough to use a piece of plywood. I was forced to stamp the ground bit by bit in something resembling a Native American rain dance where the dancer never looks up and is occasionally overwhelmed with dizziness and falls over. Thankfully, there is no video of this event.
My wildflower meadow is really all a dream, because I’ve learned that the flower bed I envision in my minds eye is rarely the flower bed I achieve.
Thankfully, after the meadow was planted, God sent rain, rain, and more rain. Some seeds have sprouted and I am hoping for the best. I can plant and water, but God causes the growth.
Gabe is not the least bit concerned whether this backyard area becomes a wildflower meadow or a tall patch weeds. I have told him he doesn’t have to mow it and he’ll hold onto that promise for the rest of his life.
