Order in paradise....

Before my wife betrayed me, I loved gardening.  It was one of my obsessions and gave me a lot of joy.  One of the projects that I had in the works was to put landscaping timbers down to form boarders for my flowerbed.  I  managed to finally get the timbers down, but it consumed all of the remaining interest that I had in pretty much everything.  I was completely numb to the garden and everything else.

I had also saved piles of cardboard and shipping materials for my lasagna gardening technique.  But now, even though a lot of my interests are returning, I don't feel like I have the energy to focus on anything more than dreaming about gardening and/or actually watering the plants.

I plan to take my restoration easy and not force myself to do anything in particular until I'm ready to.  That is a big part of the reason behind my Darwinian Garden Technique this year.  Only the most worthy (the fittest) will survive the winter.

Also, in an effort to bring peace to my life, I am cleaning out my living and working spaces.  There will be more cardboard when and if I'm ready to do an extensive redesign of my garden.  I've decided to go ahead and throw out my stockpiles of packing materials and cardboard.

The only thing that I plan on doing this spring is raising the low spot by the corner of the house and laying down some sod and stepping stones.  This is more to redirect water and protect the foundation of the house than anything.  I've also decided that I'm going to do a lot of simple container gardening and not worry about putting things in the ground.  I'll just let my interests return when they are ready; naturally -- like blooms in the spring.

Staghorn Fern

A friend at work gave me a staghorn fern from his 5 acre garden.  He said that it was growing out of the bottom of a large pot of them.  I put some 'seed starter' potting soil on it and then tied it to two pieces of moist, rotten oak that I had laying out in the backyard.  I hung the epiphyte bundle up from the shepherd's hook.