Benjamin Vogt's Blog, page 25
July 11, 2013
Gardening With Natives as a Moral Act -- Part 2
Between Facebook, email, and this blog, I've received a wide variety of comments and suggestions about my original post. My thanks for the encouragement of those who enjoyed the rant, but I want to address some of the criticisms.
When I said I wasn't holding a gun to your head to plant natives, I meant it, but enough people felt threatened by me that I was surprised -- so I went out and bought a dozen guns. To essentially be called a bigot or racist a few times really made me upset and sad....
When I said I wasn't holding a gun to your head to plant natives, I meant it, but enough people felt threatened by me that I was surprised -- so I went out and bought a dozen guns. To essentially be called a bigot or racist a few times really made me upset and sad....
July 8, 2013
Gardening with Natives as a Moral Act -- A Big Rant
This week I tested the waters on Facebook for a bold new view I'm taking with private and public managed landscapes (gardens, right of ways, parks, businesses). This is where I started: daylilies and hostas, along with much of their ilk (visit Home Depot), are pointless, wasted plants in gardens. I don't want to see any more of them ever again. They are bupkis for wildlife and are overplanted. Neighborhoods of hosta are like McDonalds on every street corner -- homogenized, dull, empty calorie...
July 1, 2013
In Praise of Species Coneflowers
When I started gardening in Ludicrous Speed (please see Spaceballs for that reference), I bought all kinds of pretty coneflowers in the local nurseries -- purple, white, orange, yellow, umber, red. I'm not sure any of those are still alive. Well, there is a white one.
Most of these cultivars and hybrids died out within 1-3 years; one constantly got some sort of leafspot, defoliated, and called it quits by August. Most were stunted and didn't bloom all that much. Someone once told me you shou...
Most of these cultivars and hybrids died out within 1-3 years; one constantly got some sort of leafspot, defoliated, and called it quits by August. Most were stunted and didn't bloom all that much. Someone once told me you shou...
June 27, 2013
Landscape vs. Family
One of the ideas I'm flushing out in my memoir as I enter the middle stages
of drafting is how the Great Plains landscape influences us, and vice versa;
how the solitude of prairie produces fear and anxiety, and the outcome is
rowcrop monoculture. We feel placeless. Disconnected. We don't know how to
honor our families by honoring the land, and vice versa. We don't know our
families or...<![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]>
of drafting is how the Great Plains landscape influences us, and vice versa;
how the solitude of prairie produces fear and anxiety, and the outcome is
rowcrop monoculture. We feel placeless. Disconnected. We don't know how to
honor our families by honoring the land, and vice versa. We don't know our
families or...<![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]>
June 23, 2013
An 1870s Prairie Fire
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June 20, 2013
One Paragraph Memoir
Wrote 4,000 words recently on the memoir, and I think this is the only part worth keeping -- it's about the Salt Flats in Oklahoma:
"This is an amazing place –
a landscape of absence and solitude, filled with subtle fluctuations of
life at its most raw and determined. I can only imagine what it looks
like in March when the migrations come through, millions of birds in
every size and color, pushing their lean bodies north through the desert-less desert of the central Plains. I remember...
"This is an amazing place –
a landscape of absence and solitude, filled with subtle fluctuations of
life at its most raw and determined. I can only imagine what it looks
like in March when the migrations come through, millions of birds in
every size and color, pushing their lean bodies north through the desert-less desert of the central Plains. I remember...
June 17, 2013
What's Wrong With My Garden
Maybe it's because I'm having dreams of bigger, riskier things, but I'm somewhat unsatisfied with the garden. Oh, it's full and lush, firing on all cylinders. It's taking care of itself beautifully as a healthy ecosystem should. I don't know if I can put my finger on it....
This is perhaps my favorite angled view of the main garden, capturing most of it in the frame. The paths are hidden by the height of the three main beds. In a few weeks this will all be color, but even now, the texture...
This is perhaps my favorite angled view of the main garden, capturing most of it in the frame. The paths are hidden by the height of the three main beds. In a few weeks this will all be color, but even now, the texture...
June 14, 2013
Garden Tour 2013
Last weekend my garden was open for the Garden Club of Lincoln Tour. A great time for sure, but practically nothing was blooming -- late July and late September are peak bloom times for me, so I'd like to find a way to establish a fall garden tour here in Lincoln. If anyone has ideas or connections, hit me up, because the blooms and foliage are dazzling in September and October (even November some years).
One of the best comments I received / remembered (there were around 200 people who c...
One of the best comments I received / remembered (there were around 200 people who c...
June 10, 2013
Oklahoma (and Kansas) One More Time -- The Memoir is Nigh
At the end of May my wife and I made another tour of Oklahoma -- the last before I, hopefully, finish a draft of my memoir this summer. I wanted to see more of the natural landscape, because Oklahoma has the most ecoregions of any state (as well as being one of the most biodiverse, thanks to going from high plains in the panhandle to mountains, woods, and steamy marshes in the east). We literally kept hours ahead of the storms as they moved east, missing the El Reno tornado by less than a day...
June 6, 2013
Talking Out Loud About Prairies Yet to Be
Time to explore the old-fashioned meaning of blogging, which way back when certainly meant an online diary.
I'm feeling restless and patient at the same time. My wife and I are planning to purchase an acreage in the next few years, perhaps as early as next year. Of course, then we need a place to live, and we are comfortable now, but there's something missing -- an element of fulfillment that is lacking, and perhaps a dash of mid life crisis burning through pants (I should get that looked at...
I'm feeling restless and patient at the same time. My wife and I are planning to purchase an acreage in the next few years, perhaps as early as next year. Of course, then we need a place to live, and we are comfortable now, but there's something missing -- an element of fulfillment that is lacking, and perhaps a dash of mid life crisis burning through pants (I should get that looked at...
