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| White Profusion Buddleia - Butterfly Bush |
Springhill Nursery sent me a White Profusion Butterfly Bush today. Hummingbirds and butterflies love the scent of this plant, but some gardening sourpusses say - "Don't plant it! Butterflies need more vegetation to keep them fed and breeding, and the bush can spread."
I lost track of the junk bushes in my yard. I have been carving away on one, which was aspiring to be a tree. Others want to grow around my big, dead tree (where I hang garden hose). If all of them were butterfly bush, I would let them grow to their full height.
Some nurseries sell short versions of the bush, since there are many varieties. Large ones can grow 12 feet in height.
Recently I read of bushes keeping large birds from raiding the feeder. Small birds navigate the branches better. I will check out the theory when we have something taller than a knee-high starter. Meanwhile, I will put suet bags around the yard, to see what they attract.
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| Giant aliums look like large purple versions of the garlic flower, because they are garlic too. |
The bulbs also arrived, so our helper dug holes with me for tulips, daffodils, giant alium, and crown imperial. He saw a new bag of newspapers and asked, "Are we going to mulch again? There won't be any yard left!" I said, "No, you are going to mulch the entire park - about three acres."
Later, when Sassy and I walked by his home, we stopped for a drink of water for her and some kidding with his wife. I said, "Would you ask how to use a big bag of money? I get a free bag of newspaper - I don't wonder what to do. I have plans."
They thought a bag of money was more useful. Sassy barked some hellos at the cat, who never takes her seriously now.
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| Crown Imperial is the spectacular cousin of the guinea hen plant, both fritillarias. |
Crown Imperial will grow in the middle of the two tulip drifts. They are stinky (for flowers) and should keep cute little rodents away from the tulips. I gave up on crocus after squirrels dug them up and reburied them.
By the way - order all bulbs from Dutch Gardens. They offer the largest bulbs for the best prices. Other supplies - it depends on who is selling what. One place will have a lot of butterfly bushes and ask "What?" about the white profusion, even though they have a very large selection.
I may consider tender bulbs in the spring. Dutch Gardens has all the main types and some unusual ones. Perhaps I can leave them in the ground in Arkansas and not dig them up and store them.
Mulching works
Our combination of wood mulch over newspapers has worked very well to turn the lawn into garden soil with earthworms galore. Today I also raked back mulch to expose soil for two packets of spinach seed.
The ground was soft and easily dug. I used a metal rake to pull the mulch and newspaper layer away. Softening the soil and sowing the seed was easy.
The soaker hose became a squirter hose with Sassy's chewing. This resulted in random spraying of the gardener when adjusting the hose placement. The final result was a good soaking for the new bush and the row of spinach.
Teamwork
Our helper enjoys the gardening and making money. I have done many more projects with him because the laborious work - like mulching the first time - is not motivating. And yet, that is what had to be done to reclaim a yard that ran wild for some time.
I work with various people on the book projects. Norma Boeckler does the artwork, and others participate in the research and editing. I would not have anything done without that help, and we all gain from working as a team.
One pastor noted that he has experienced more friendship from the people he knew at a secular job than from the ministers of his own denomination. That sense of competition and alienation has become increasingly destructive in church bodies. One faction sets itself against the others and gathers its own leaders into positions of authority. They ignore the most common aspects of honoring another person's call.
WELS talks big about brotherhood, but it is more of a sisterhood of Jeske clones, who gloat over getting away with plagiarism and run faithful pastors into the ground, often through the laity. If anyone wants to knock gossipy old ladies, stop - the WELS clergy are without peers in that regard. They even call it "their grapevine" and use it to feed their toxic waste into the system. No wonder they are killing their grapevine. "Apart from Me you can do nothing."
When the branch is separated from the Vine, the Means of Grace, it withers and becomes deadwood. The deadwood is cut off, withers, is gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned,
Every plant tested has a fungus within that helps it in some way. In addition, fungi feed the roots by delivering nutrition in exchange for carbon. In some cases, fungi help several several plants at the same time.
That symbiotic relationship is largely gone in the visible church today. If getting rid of people made a denomination run more smoothly, WELS would be a model organization instead of a laughing-stock.