Goodbye and Good Night Skullcap

I'm deleting several spreaders from my flowerbeds, one at a time. We all know that bee balm (a member of the mint family) and phlox freely reproduce themselves in the flower bed. Over time, i've collected some less well-known spreaders. The first on my list is skullcap (Scutellaria)--another a member of the mint family.

In the past, i have liked to collect and grow herbs, but i never did anything with them. I just liked have Nature's medicine cabinet at the ready. But when it comes right down to it, i buy a ready-made tincture of valerian and skullcap and use 2 droppers-ful to put my body back to sleep at 2:00 a.m.

I am not going to be making my own tinctures, after all.

This is part of the general pruning off of activities and stuff that i've been doing for the past few years. Yesterday, it was good-bye skullcap.

Simplify Your Flowerbed

My theory of flowerbeds is small clumps near the house, which can become larger the farther you go away from the house. Near the house, a clump of flowers can be about a foot in diameter; farther away, 2-3 feet in diameter.

In practice this means on-going division and taking "spreaders" (such as bee balm or phlox) out of the neat little beds altogether. It all depends on your tolerance for dividing. Some gardeners can't bear to divide their clumps at all.

Flowers can overwhelm our little gardens, stuff can overwhelm our house, and multi-tasking can overwhelm our lives.

Simplify your garden, your house, and your to-do list. Create some breathing space for your plants and yourself.

What one thing can you let go of today?

Photo from www.landscapinggallery.info

Spreaders--in the Garden and in Life

I now have a hillside's worth of plants laid out on tarps in the shade. It's odd to look at 20 years worth of plants stacked up like piles of clothes at a rummage sale.

In the digging, i discovered several white plastic plant tags of plants that didn't make it. In the end, the spreaders prevailed--golden glow, spiderwort, Artemisia, evening primrose, daylilies, irises, and goatsbeard (Aruncus). I found 2 delphiniums and a puny peony. The white Echinacea never took hold.

When we look back at the fruits (or flowers) of our life, what do we see that prevailed? Material goods (e.g., "The one with the most toys wins.")? Good works? Work? Family?

And what is it that we intend?

A month before she died, my mother said, "I didn't intend for it to turn out this way, but that's the way life goes when you mistreat it." (She was an alcoholic.)

One of my intentions is to meditate for 2 or 3 hours a day, but i seldom do. I've recently made a pact with a Dharma friend to meditate 2 hours a day. This "Dharma dare" is helping me reach my goal, but it's still hard.

The spreaders in my life--the garden itself, various commitments, and just plain busy-ness--threaten to overrun my good intentions. "Later," i think. But it may be later than i think.