Wild Violet's Garden Blog

While many folks have started New Year’s Resolutions for 2022, I have been looking for My Word. Admittedly, I could use improvements along the lines of traditional resolutions like getting more exercise, eating less sweets, or managing money well, but I also know myself enough to know I don’t and won’t abide by these just because we hang a new tally sheet on the wall indicating the reset of the annual cycle. What I love about a new year is the excuse for a pause. A practically mandated time set aside for nostalgic self-reflection! This looking back, along with the hopeful feeling of potential for what is to come is an enjoyable tradition for me (I’m blessedly past the stage of loud, boozy, people-y New Year’s Eve parties).  Yes, instead of traditional resolutions, I’ve adopted a more recent trend of choosing a word to focus on for the upcoming year. I find self-improvement goals for a new season easier to remember if I settle on a word or phrase that is lately on my hea...

We survived 2020. Time for a refresh in 2021. Here's the Wild Violets Landscape Design original logo: Then, I nixed the bee (bees were all the rage, neonicitinoid controversy and all that, and bees are still super awesome, but I thought it was a little too cute )... And now, (drum roll) introducing a grown up, more natural, less cartoony version: I like it. That is all. Also, to go along with the Stay Wild revolution noted in a previous post, we now have t shirts for sale. I loooove them. (heart emoticon, etc. etc.). Hope you will too: https://www.orderteamgear.com/company-stores/wild-violets-landscape-design/

Deep Breath. Here goes. And it’s gonna be sweary.  You’ve probably heard the phrase “Life begins at 40”. I’m there. I’m a few years into the decade, but already deep in the vibe. A shift is happening, and my mind is blown by the “aliveness” of it all. Here’s how it happened:  I’m a woman, wife, mom, daughter, sister, friend, entrepreneur, creative dreamer. I was also recently diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), primarily Inattentive Type. “WTF”, you ask? I know. Don’t get me started; I’m still getting used to it myself, and it’s a long, complicated story filled with questions, doubt, research, doctors, naysayers, anger, acceptance, and lots and lots of hope (repeat).  It’s a fucking revelation . Here I am, at age 43, wondering why I’ve always felt anxious, socially awkward, misunderstood, and possibly legit crazy. I have been questioning myself for years. Decades. Trudging through life, wearing (too) many hats, grasping at fulfillme...

I was pumping gas one day across from an older gentleman when a jacked-up, loud-mufflered, big black truck pulled into the station and stopped abruptly nearby with a large, burly, bearded, agitated dude leaning out the window. “Hey old man!”, he yelled at the guy across the pump from me. “You the guy that just ran that stop sign back there?”. I, being deathly afraid of confrontations, was ready to flee so as not to witness the potential smack down and/or homicide of an old man by a large redneck. But, also, being an avid noticer of things and people, and also stuck mid-gasoline-pump myself, I froze in place, steeled myself, and peeked around the pump to see the show. Old Guy, with barely a glance at Agitated Guy, very slowly and deliberately continued his process of pumping gas: squinted at the pump screen, pushed a button, inserted the hose, and then simply said quietly and maybe a bit sadly, “Yeeaaaah, that sounds like me.” Agitated guy was still hopped up and tried to contin...

  I am a gardener. I consider it a large part of my identity. But here I am again in January, in Minnesota, questioning my major life choices, specifically this career and climate in which I cannot actively “career” for 3 months out of the year.     I dream of vacations I would take to places where green things still grow, if I possessed the discipline and cash flow to be able to save money for this purpose. Oh, and if pandemics weren’t a thing. Also, thanks to COVID, I am home supporting my 2 nd and 5 th graders’ distance learning instead of working part-time outside the home this winter. I much prefer this home arrangement, actually, but the pay is in hugs and smiles which don’t buy vacations, although they totally should because the world would be way cooler.   So, I spend a lot of time reading. I read year-round, but full-time in winter, and perhaps out of resentment, pretty much zero of the books I read are about plants. I favor biograp...

I'm a tea drinker. Tea comes from plants, specifically Camellia sinensis , which is native to Asia but now is cultivated in tropical places around the world so all of humankind can have it's plant-y caffeine goodness but not have to drink coffee, which tastes like burned dirt. And that's the horticultural part of this post. What I really need to talk about is anxiety.  COVID anxiety is a new level of anxiety on top of my regular anxiety. My regular strategy of carrying around yellow legal pad to-do lists to keep on top of life's tasks is not cutting it. I feel like my brain is swimming in open ocean with dangerous distractions like Titanic-sized icebergs, sharks with frickin' laser beams on their heads, and that giant vortex of human-dumped trash in the Pacific. So, the docs suggest medication (of course), cognitive behavioral therapy, exercise, and meditation/mindfulness. Each one of these could be a large discussion, but lately I've been thinking a...

In 2014, my husband's parents moved into town. It was a big deal. My father-in-law, almost 77 years young at the time, was born on this farm and had literally never lived anywhere else. My husband had only lived one other place besides the farm, in River Falls, WI with me, for a few years before and after we got married. Hubby always wanted to live on the farm again. Due to the level of physical work that home and farm building maintenance, mowing, and general fix-its require on a farm, it made sense for Grandma and Grandpa to move to a simpler home with an association to take care of all that tedium, and the next generation to take over those tasks on the farm. Making sense, however, isn't the same as making it easy. The transition brought those feelings of fear and awkwardness and loss and excitement that come with big change. I assume these extended on both sides of the transaction and into the extended family, although we are all from a culture and heritage that doesn't...

I haven't left my corner of the world past the mailbox in a week. I haven't blogged in, I don't know, years? Coronavirus is here. Our spring break turned into 'social distancing' instead of visiting Grandma and Grandpa.  Regardless of human anxiety and fear, spring has the guts to show up. Snow piles are almost melted, birds are chatty in the cottonwood tree and the rhubarb is peeking out of the ground near the chicken coop. Seeds have the audacity to grow. Do I?

I don't have a photo of a real Tiny House. Here's somebody's Tiny Garden Shed. Just Enough Tiny houses fascinate me. I’m not saying I’m signing up to live in one as I do require quiet space to myself sometimes. Not sure how that would be possible with tiny people, a 3 yr and 6 yr old, in the tiny house scene. What I admire about the concept is the simplicity that would be required in order to fit your life and all its trappings into such a small space. Unloading all of the excess, deciding what to let go of and keeping only what is truly useful and valued and loved sounds like a way to find some peace in the chaos of life. I crave a lack of visual clutter, contrary to what my housecleaning habits may suggest. My husband on the other hand, is a keep everything in case you need it kind of person. You would think he was raised during the Great Depression instead of a few generations removed. And yet, this is not a bad way to be, just different. I have to admit, his...

I meant to start my first seeds on March 1st, buuuuut 3 days late is about par for the course around here. Plus, the snow today is encouraging defiance in me. My eager 6 year old helper and I just planted seeds for: Kale Scarlet Kale Dinosaur Cabbage Greyhound Cabbage Brunswick Onion Southport White Globe Onion Crimson Forest Bunching Broccoli Romanesco Rosemary Lavender Most of these are cool crops that will be transplanted outside in mid April, as they are happy in cooler spring temps. The rosemary and lavender take a while to germinate and get growing if I remember correctly, so I thought I'd try starting them early. Last year my lavender started under the lights didn't grow at all inside. But after I had transplanted everything else outside to the garden, it finally sprouted from it's abandoned flat that just hadn't made it to the compost bin yet. I think it was kept too wet inside. Or was not warm enough. Or just didn't like being looked at or somethin...

This is not an essay about edible flowers, although I am a fan. It is about how a garden’s beauty fills us up in other ways. This sounds like a complete cliché, but I’m trying to sort out my brain, so bear with me. Gardeners want to create beautiful spaces that help people appreciate the outdoors and feel connected with nature. I think many of us feel like it’s our purpose in life to work with the earth to create beauty with plants (and things to eat). But of course non-gardeners also care about beauty. Otherwise, why do people buy fresh flowers grown by someone else (that are just going to die in the vase in a few days)? Why do humans care what our clothes look like? Or what color paint is on our walls? Or what color or model of car we drive? Humans are wired to care about beauty, because consciously and unconsciously, our surroundings influence how we feel.  So I think what I’m getting at is: Flowers are Food. Beauty is necessary nourishment. Everyone should be a gar...

I have not blogged for almost a year. My life and my mind have been in a state of general disarray for the last year and a half, now that I think about it. It has been a time of change and upheaval, but now the downtime of winter has brought me some time for reflection on the craziness. In August of 2014 my husband and I moved our family away from my beloved Wisconsin. We are now what I like to call 'homesteading' (because I feel it makes my crazy-chicken-lady status acceptable) near Hastings, Minnesota on my husband's family farm where he grew up, and his father before him grew up, and his father before him, and maybe one more father before him too; yep, if I remember correctly what I have been told, the family farm has been here that long. And now here we are, raising our kids in the same place. Sentimentality is in my nature, so I can dig it, even with the stress of moving. Creaky/beautiful old farmhouse and all. In January 2015, I offic...

Seeds! Here I am, a stir crazy parent with stir crazy kids, waiting patiently for spring and for the phone to ring with people wanting their landscape designs drawn.  In the meantime, I'm itching to start some seeds to entertain myself and the girls and get us out of our winter funk.  Of course we moved to a new home since last time we did this, so had to dig out all our supplies from various stockpiles stashed around the farm buildings and get re-organized (thank you to my Hubby for helping me get my sh*t together, as usual). In case you are interested in an idea for setting up something for yourself to start seeds, I thought I would share the very basic setup in our basement to show how easily it can be done.  It is right near the utility sink for water, and floor drain for drainage from flats while watering (drainage is important!). Although my upstairs has more natural light, I can only imagine kiddos and dogs dumping out flats of soil and seedlings in my ...

Last week, I was invited to the 2nd grade classroom in my daughter's school to talk about plants. I love getting kids excited about plants and growing stuff. I decided to come up with something to help the students think about where their food comes from, i.e. which plant parts we are eating when we eat our fruits and veggies and how does it grow? Is it a root, stem, leaf or flower? Having just covered plants in science, they were hip to that jive. And I also wanted to leave them with an enthusiasm for growing some edible plants for themselves next spring and summer.  I started with an exercise that had them cut out pictures of plant parts to build a plant of their own design. The handout is from an awesome lesson book called 'Minnesota School Gardens: A Guide to Gardening and Plant Science', which I found through the Minnesota Department of Ag website. Find more info and resources about the MN Agriculture in the Classroom program, click here .  ...

I have been thinking a lot lately about how kids play. Specifically, my brain debates the value of fancy, expensive toys and gadgets versus imaginative, 'simple' play. I could open a whole can of worms here about what I think are the goods and bads of each type of play, but ugh, I just don't want to. That's been done thoroughly by others. I'm not going to claim to be an expert on play, but rather, an observant Mom. I will just say TAKE YOUR KIDS OUTSIDE FOR PETE'S SAKE. There. Now you know where my loyalties generally lie. Last fall I took the Girls to a new park called Whitetail Woods  that has an awesome nature play area. No behemoth metal and plastic play structure here, but instead sticks and rocks, water and sand.  It makes me think of the Late Show with David Letterman bits where he periodically brings in a toy expert to show him the newest and best in toys and gadgets, often lamenting that...

I have an important list on my desk. I like to brainstorm in list form because it is so satisfying to empty my head onto a piece of paper. Sometimes I write lists in a notebook kept by my bed, if I remember it's there. I can't justify calling it a journal like fancy writers do. It's a red spiral notebook, wide ruled. I also have another notebook for random thoughts on my desk, and a small one in my purse. But I'm more of a spur of the moment gal so any piece of scratch paper will do for an important list, really. Then my lists mingle a while on my desk with bills, landscaping estimates, calendars, dance class schedules, Menards receipts, photos I need a bulletin board for, checkbooks, and teacups (real and toy ones) and may not resurface until a rainy day like this when I am trying to organize my office and brain and life. You'd think I would have a special safe place to keep these important ideas. At least an official inbox or something. Maybe I should head to Mena...

Time to talk about it. We recently pulled up roots and moved away from my first real garden.  Well technically, my very first garden was a sandy plot near the sugar maple at the Shell Lake farm. I vaguely remember trying to grow petunias, moss roses and whatever else struck my fancy in that too-shady, but much-loved, spot for my 4-H Flower project. But my first real grown up garden, which I puttered in all on my own schedule, rather than as a shadow following my Mom or Dad, was a new experience. I chose it and bought it myself. An acre of drool-worthy, former-dairy-pasture Wisconsin black loam. Jackpot. I chose the place not so much for the house as for the yard and the potential I imagined there. I proceeded to dig and plant and mulch and weed and mow and create a garden all for myself. Then I changed my mind and transplanted and re-created it myself. Several times. My garden was an imperfect work in progress. Crazy, dirty bliss. Full of experiments - successes and failur...