Benjamin Vogt's Blog, page 42

The Garden Book You Need Now

Sleep, Creep, Leap: The First Three Years of a Nebraska Garden, is ready for you. I wrote the book last winter with one press in mind, and although the editors liked it, the marketing department did not. A few solid compliments from other presses--and stories of other author success--and I've decided to self publish my collection of essays in hopes of attracting a publisher. Will you please help me spread the word? I'd even love to do an author q&a at your site, interview, guest post, somethi...

Aster Yellows Rainbow and Butterflies

I assume this is some sort of aster yellows on a purple coneflower, but it's just so beautiful:





Here's a black swallowtail lifting off a cone:

And a tiger swallowtail on a musk thistle I don't...

Honesty -- Kate Buckley

It's been a while since I posted a gardeny poem, but here's one now since it's been in the 90s and 100s the last 14 days here, and is thus too hot to dig.



Honesty 

   

There's an honesty to planting,

in saying to seeds,

here's what I want from you:

grow.



Grow until your heads touch

the tallest slat on the tumbledown wall

and then bud. Break open your heads

and flower, and when that's done,

fruit.

  

In ...

On Silence and Solitude

I can never get enough of either. I feel healed when I have large quantities of both--I feel cleansed and centered and alive again.



Here are quotes from Terry Tempest Williams I posted almost exactly three years ago. Someone linked to it, and I rediscovered them. These are ideas I hope to address in my next memoir.



from Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place :



"It [silence / solitude] is what sustains me and protects me from my mind. It renders me fully present. I am desert. I a...

Mr. Mows All The Time Waters All The Time, Too

I just can't stand not saying something. If you don't have anything nice to say, blog about it.



Mr. Mows All The Time is watering his yard. It is 100 degrees at 5:30 with a 115 heat index, blazing sun, no breeze though. Their lawn is ever so slightly browner than last week in this heatwave. Keep in mind he mows so often (mowing makes grass release moisture) and so low, that it seems brown right after he mows, so they also water then. Mow, water, blow, fertililze, water, mow. No trees.



So, ...

Happy Birthday to Me & The Garden, 2011

The garden is 4, and I'm 35. It's also my parents' 39th wedding anniversary (my 4th anniversary was a week ago). Oh, and it's also the birthday of my little cousins who turn 12.



As one gift to myself, my book of garden essays--Sleep, Creep, Leap: The First Three Years of a Nebraska Garden--should be on Kindle any second, and the paperback out by August. In a few weeks, it'll also be on the iPad, Nook, and Sony Reader.



Another gift is trying to start a native plant garden consulting / coach...

My Mother's Pond

It's hers because she wanted it--my dad, not so much. Last weekend we visited my folks in Minnesota and got to see their most recent landscaping project. So peaceful. So neat. My wife loved it.



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Even...

Monarch Gardens Consulting / Coaching -- Open for Business

Over a year of thinking, prodded by the garden tour, has brought me to this great experiment: Great Plains native plant garden consulting. Feel free to link over to the main Monarch Gardens site and check me / us out (strange how, when starting a service or business, the singular becomes the plural--as if I have multiple personalities).



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See Me in Orion Magazine / Self Publishing a Memoir

I have a photo and a caption in the current July / August issue of Orion. I love that on the page after me is a piece by Bill McKibben, and also in the issue work by Scott Russell Sanders. These guys have been major influences on my early environmental thinking. But to see my wife and sandhill cranes go to page 9.



I also won a $100 gift certificate from Prairie Nursery, 1st place in their photo contest for an image of a pasque flower (it's in the Flickr rotation on the top right of the blog)...

Picture This Photo Entry

It's not fantastic, but here's my lavender in the breeze for Gardening Gone Wild's Picture This Photo Contest for this month. I suggest clicking on it to expand the image to make it more interesting.



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