31. What's Next

Since I'm no longer afraid or timid about dreaming big, I've got big ideas about the future of my backyard:

I want it to be a gathering place in the temperate months. A respite for myself, my family and friends. A getaway in a cul-de-sac on a property where the sidewalk ends, literally. I am dreaming of patio parties and workshops for littles where I can introduce them to gardening, planting seeds, cutting blossoms, and feeling closer to nature.

Phase two of the hill transformation will include building two more retaining walls—out of cedar—on either side of the existing flower garden.

The overarching goal for that space is to fill it with visual detail and plant enough stuff (a very technical term) that eventually there is very little weeding to do.

I will expand the size of my cutting garden with more rows of zinnias and sunflowers. (More flowers to share!) I will split my enormous pampas grasses and transplant them to other parts of the hill knowing that they will help fill the space and discourage growth of renegade weeds. Also, more grasses to wave in the wind, thus simulating Kansas prairie.

I envision planting lavender up high along the fence line. I love the color and the look of lavender. I also like that it waves in the wind, takes up space, and requires little maintenance.

By next fall the retaining walls will be built, so I'll know where are the best places to plant bulbs—tulips, daffodils, gladiolas. I want to look out my window in the next few years and be delighted by all the visual features of a space I transformed myself.

While I have no plans to move anytime soon, I do like to daydream about leaving that yard far more beautiful than when I got it. And thinking about the patio parties I will host, the stories told and marshmallows roasted around the fire pit. I like thinking that the bulbs I plant will delight future dwellers as much as the tulips that have been blooming every spring since I moved in fifteen years ago.

I will continue to document my journey on Instagram (@journalingjulie). I will continue to be inspired by the gardens featured in some of the accounts I now follow, especially @puscinaflowers in Italy.

I am energized and inspired thinking about how my gardening will influence and factor into my writing. I will be forever grateful for my willingness to lean in to the discomfort I felt about my yard and to follow my curiosities. It was a life-changing summer.

Late season blooms

  Thank you for following me on my journey.

30. What I Learned

Practically speaking, I learned that the Queen Anne's lace-looking stuff that crops up each season must be vanquished whilst still in bloom. I made that mistake this spring. It looked pretty, and so I kept it around. But after it blooms, burrs develop, and they are insidious. I won't make that mistake again.

On a deeper level, this gardening experiment reinforced things I was beginning to recognize more readily in myself: I am determined, creative, and resilient. I did, in fact, inherit my grandparents' green thumbs. That bit of revelation thrills me to no end. It's a bit like learning that I'm not a complete dunce in the kitchen, which was an old, worn-out narrative I believed about myself for too many years.

I have a three-ring notebook full of reference articles. When something random catches my eye that I think I might want to return to later, I slide it into a page protector and include it in the binder. Recently, I had a few new entries to include. The binder was nearing capacity, so I flipped through it page-by-page looking for articles or idea inspirations that were past their prime. Things that I could remove to make room for other, newer items.

I was delighted and surprised to discover how many times something garden related had been added to this reference binder over the years. It seems I've been nurturing a desire to garden, to get my hands in the dirt and grow something, for a long, long time. Much the same way I nurtured my love of writing, long before I decided to claim that as a passion and something I would pursue with tenacity. Flipping through those pages was a form of archaeology. It was an enlightening, empowering discovery, and one that will serve and nourish me for years to come.

When I began this journey, I was weary of the physical scenery of my neglected, overgrown backyard. I was also tired of the stress and belief that to fix the mess, I would have to spend thousands of dollars I simply do not, nor would I have, for the foreseeable future. What a liberating thing to decide I would make it better on my own, bit-by-bit, and as budget allowed.

I was rewarded time and again by my willingness to ask for help and admit I was a novice. That quality has brought to my life the most serendipitous and helpful conversations and interactions. It also gave me the space to think out loud, to dream, and to plan.

In the process, I also had the chance to dwell in the memories of my grandparents, to ask myself the questions I would have liked to ask my grandmother, in particular, and by doing so now, wait quietly for spirit and my own intuition to help guide me to her answers.

Like my 40/40 list three years ago, this gardening experiment has been another practice ground for sharpening life and coping skills. It has served as a mirror to reflect back to me what I am seeing, feeling, and experiencing in life during this season. It's given me space to ask questions, listen for the answers. It's also been a safe place for me to grieve some losses that still felt fresh when the season began.

I feel stronger, more sure-footed, more hopeful about the future. I believe in the power of the changing of seasons—both physical and emotional.

I am the proud owner of a few new tools and a whole lot more confidence. I challenged some preconceived notions, and came out stronger than before.

I learned that I am much like the zinnias I grew: hearty and capable of withstanding harsh conditions. I am colorful, bright, and strong. I learned I AM a gardener, and far less of a novice than when I started brokenhearted and overwhelmed this spring.

29. Many Hands Make Lighter Work

The season is winding down. I feel it, and while at first I wasn't quite ready to say goodbye to my flower garden, I am now. As I put my garden to bed, a new crop of story ideas and a new book project have landed lightly on my mind and heart like the monarch butterflies that have visited the zinnias in the cutting garden. I am ready to turn my full attention to a new season of writing.

In the past month, I have had the help of two sets of friends put the finishing touches on this gardening experiment gone very, very right. On September 29, five friends sacrificed their Saturday mornings to help me regrade the first level of ground past the main retaining wall.

Nine years before, the wall collapsed. It hadn't been originally built with drainage, so pressure built up, and kaboom! When the wall was rebuilt, the filler rock wasn't redistributed or graded, so it was a twisted ankle waiting to happen. It had also been host to an eye sore of renegade weeds.

My friends moved the rock around and then used a rented vibrating compactor to smooth out the surface and prepare it for weed block and mulch. They also transplanted a volunteer sycamore tree onto the grass part of the yard below. 

Before

The rock did not make digging out this tree an easy task.

The laborers captured by my daughter lounging in the hammock.

Use of the vibrating compactor.

After

I paid them in really good pizza, and as we refueled and reflected on what we'd accomplished in a few hours, they discussed what my next steps were. I needed to buy weed block, staples, and order five to six cubic yards of cedar mulch.

I swallowed the pizza and tried to digest how I was going to do that next task alone. I didn't stew long because I had a summer's worth of surprise achievements under my belt.

I also knew how to proceed: Break. It. Down.

And so I did. 

I bought my supplies and then worked on it after work for several evenings.

Finishing some evenings by moonlight.

I was ready for my next set of friends who brought wheelbarrows, shovels, and a lot of pluck. We tackled the pile of mulch in my driveway. Over the three hours it took to complete the job, we tweaked and finessed our strategies and tactics and moved that mulch up and over the retaining wall. 

This is what 5 cubic yards of mulch looks like.

We've only just begun...

We've got a system down, and are making steady progress.

More progress.

These women join me in my wild adventures, and I'm grateful. I'll redistribute the piles when I'm rested.

It was hard work, but it was also deeply satisfying. It felt good to move my body in so many ways, and thanks to my yoga training, to do so safely. We worked smart, so we didn't have to work too hard.

We enjoyed a good meal and then went our separate ways. I went directly to soak in a tub of Epsom salts and relaxed the rest of the day. I am really mastering how to balance productivity and leisure, and both states feel great.

28. Wheat State

I've thought a lot about my beloved Grandpa as I worked in my yard this summer. The last time he came for a visit, he looked out the window and brainstormed with me what I could do to rein in the weeds and tame the hill.

This man was one of my best friends, and he knew it. He told me once that he wanted me to get a hobby. I told him I had my writing and he reminded me that I could talk to him any time. But he also said that he was an old man and wouldn't be around forever. The way he saw it, a hobby would help keep me company when he was no longer around.

That conversation has replayed in my mind repeatedly all summer. I wish so much that I could tell him about my efforts, my successes, and my progress in my backyard. I want to tell him that gardening became a hobby and helped me grieve his death.

When we talked two years ago, I joked about planting wheat. To my surprise, Grandpa didn't completely laugh off the idea. We talked out the pros and cons of planting wheat. I was grateful that he took my considerations seriously.

For more than 40 years, he had a side hustle that produced beautiful leather work for horse hitches including the Anheuser-Busch Clydesdales. He did business as the Wheat State Hame Company. I suggested wheat because what I want most on that hill is to look out and see plants and flowers that remind me of the beauty of Kansas. Sunflowers and wheat, iconic Kansas images.

Whether I plant wheat or not is irrelevant. What is beautiful is knowing how proud Grandpa would be of my efforts and my willingness to make something of that space with my own sweat, wits, and imagination.

Who knows? Maybe I'll throw some wheat up there in his honor after all.

Gramps and me in 2015

27. A Dream Come True

For years, I would look up at my mess of a hill and dream of having a cutting garden. I loved the idea of cutting fresh flowers and having them displayed throughout the house. In those years, I wasn't goal-oriented. Getting through daily life zapped most of my available energy, and dreaming of something better wasn't happening either.

After my divorce, I began buying myself bouquets from ALDI. It was an affordable luxury and grew to be such an uplifting form of self-care.

I knew so little about what I was planting this summer that I didn't realize that I had planted what would become my first cutting garden. I chose sunflowers and zinnias because I liked the look of them and because the sunflowers reminded me of home.

I began googling zinnias after a text exchange with my best friend. As luck would have it, zinnias are considered a must-have in any garden according to the online resource Savvy Gardening. I experienced all of zinnias' attributes this summer: fast growing, add extensive color, grow reliably, low maintenance, grow quickly from seed, draw butterflies and pollinators, and grow well in pots or the garden. I enjoyed witnessing their all-summer-long growth.

On the Saturday of my third yoga training weekend, I cut my first sunflower from my garden and took it to the studio to share with my teachers and classmates. I cannot tell you what it meant to do this. I parked my mat next to the puja (honored area) where other students had brought flowers from their gardens the evening before.

A few more weeks passed. I was enjoying the zinnias in their natural habitat so much that I wasn't inclined to cut them and take them inside. But more days passed and colors erupted and I decided that I could spare a few blossoms without sacrificing the look of the garden.

I later deadheaded the flowers to encourage more growth. I collected dead blooms to gather seeds for next summer's garden. I tried to count how many flowers and buds were in the garden and every time I started, I lost count. There were so many! And there was no need to take inventory. They looked amazing and that was the only thing I cared about.

My sister bought me a flasket, a cool kind of vase and basket combo. You fill the reservoir at the bottom with water and slip your arm through the handle for easy carrying. She gave it to me years ago, and this summer was the first time I ever used it. 

As a minimalist, I do a fairly frequent assessment of my material possessions and move along things that haven't been used in a long time. I am so grateful I broke my own rule on this tool. I wasn't ready to let go of that dream. Thank goodness.

This summer, as I looked up at the hill that was less of a mess and reflected my hard work, sweat, and joy, my day dreaming felt a lot more realistic and possible.

The cutting garden reinforced the lesson about abundance and scarcity. At first, I was hesitant to cut the blooms for fear the garden would lose its colorful look. But then the blossoms kept coming. There were blooms to spare and when I shared them, my joy in doing so increased. And I loved my garden more. Do not hoard beauty, is what this garden reminded me. There is plenty, and the joy comes from sharing! 

I gave bouquets to my friends over and over this summer and the joy that appeared on their faces was such a gift to me.

What other dreams shall I work to make come true?

26. Best Summer Ever

Autumn. Winter. Spring. Summer. That's the order of my preferences for the four seasons as we Midwesterners experience them. Summer has always been the season I tolerated. I liked it for its break from school when I was a child, but it was always too hot and then too cold in the air conditioning. I'm the annoying one who packs a cardigan when I leave the house May through August. And the one who wears sweaters regularly the rest of the year.

My budget grounded me for the past few years. I've been antsy to travel, to get the heck out of dodge for awhile, but my practical side wins out. I made the conscious choice to make the most of a staycation this summer. I vacationed in my backyard. It's been surprisingly wonderful.

This summer flipped a switch in me. I learned that working in the shade on even the hottest days allowed me to be both productive and leisurely. I managed to not get dehydrated or get a sunburn. I paced myself and enjoyed a blend of work and rest all in the same afternoon.I have underappreciated summer in the same way that I spent too much time in my head and not enough time in my body. Gardening returned Summer to me. It was nice to get reacquainted with the joys of summer. I love being outdoors now.

I experienced the health benefits that studies say nature provides: I felt less stressed. I breathed easier after time outdoors. I liked the weariness in my bones after an afternoon laboring on my hill ripping out weeds and mashing them down in my yard waste containers. Nature did its work on me, and I am better for it. It was such a lovely surprise.

I love sweater and boot weather, but this year, I wasn't in as much of a hurry to trade out my seasonal closet as I'd been in the past. I was reluctant to pack away my flip flops and tank tops. What a lovely feeling to be nostalgic for something new. And yet, this is the beauty of living in the Midwest. The seasons change with regularity. A good reminder that no season—physical or mental—lasts forever.

25. Habit Forming Part 2

With every passing day of summer, I became more convinced that this gardening experiment will become a new way of life for me. The hard work no longer felt like a chore. Sure there were times when my schedule made getting the lawn mowed in a timely manner tricky, but really, I like mowing. So I figured out how to better manage my time and plan ahead to make it work.

I found gardening to be another beautiful companion activity to my writing and my yoga practice. The three activities complement each other well. When I’m not physically sitting at my laptop writing, ideas and turns of phrase I can use later float into my mind as I weed or water or hold a pose on my mat. I spent so many years in my head thinking and writing and stewing. It felt good to use my body to transform my green space and to do something that showed progress and also effectively cleared my head.

Oftentimes I come home from work a little fidgety. Not ready to dive into my yoga study or work on an essay, so rather than succumb to the agitation of what to do with myself, I changed clothes (or sometimes not) and walked straight to the backyard. I turned on the hose and began watering the flowers. I climbed the hill and weeded while the water ran giving the flowers a good soaking in anticipation of the forecast for hotter temps in coming days.

As I yanked out the green trash from the hill, I felt myself breathing easier, feeling a sense of accomplishment and letting go of the low-grade panic that stole peace from the present moment.

I daydreamed about how I could get a job that let me learn more about plants, flowers, and gardening in general whilst still having good benefits: retirement savings, health care, and tuition reimbursement.

Seems for the time being, this remains an amateur thing. Novice or not, it is more fulfilling than I could have imagined. This pastime has landed on my path at exactly the right time.