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I do not know where this week has gone!  I got more cleanup of my yard done, but this is a lot of land here and I really need everyone pitching in to make sure things can get done.  I probably should’ve taken pictures to show my progress, but I’m feeling really positive about it.

I feel like my “Sunshine Garden,” as I’ve taken to calling it, is coming together nicely.  It’s going to be a little bit conceptual, but the plants I’ve picked out are nice.  I need to plant the junipers this week & then probably mark out the areas for trees arriving this fall.  Smaller plants will be in next Spring, but I am working toward getting that area the way I have it in my head.

Saturday was Justin’s birthday.  It was a quiet and uneventful day at his request, although he did end up mowing in the evening.  Justin is a good friend and I know everyone takes him for granted.  I’m blessed to have such a nice person in my life.  (These photos are from 2 years ago)

Avery spent part of the week out here, which was nice.  She’s so easy-natured and doesn’t get bent out of shape about things.

I’ve got so many things to get done; the yardwork seems endless, but this upcoming week is going to be pretty hot, so I’ll be only working outside until about 10 everyday.  That should give me time to work on some of the other things I’ve got going on — art and whatnot.

I’ve continued being obsessed with gardening.  I’ve been watching a lot of several YouTube channels on gardening.  While I never see anything exactly like what I would like to do, it is so nice to see so many ideas and tips from people who have been doing this for a long time.

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We had a hot week, which is pretty typical.  I wish I’d gotten more accomplished, but everything was feeling difficult.  So many of my days anymore are like that.

It seems like gardening is the way I’m dealing with things.  I’ve mentioned it, but it just keeps coming up.  I’m surprised, but maybe shouldn’t be really.  It was my grandpa’s death that first got me interested in growing plants.  I became briefly obsessed with houseplants.  I was living in an apartment at the time, so I couldn’t go crazy with plants of my own, but that turned into an attempt at a vegetable garden the following Spring and planting some roses for Mom in the summer.  But that was a terrible summer for growing anything and it was really discouraging.  I decided not to try again.  When Dale Combs, the man who I was named after, passed away, I was drawn to go sit and think beneath some beautiful big trees and to spend time in a wooded park.  It felt natural to be surrounded by nature.  Mary Combs passed in 2017, and once again I felt drawn to nature and natural things.  It was Winter, but I wanted to be outside.

If spent my Summer so far wanting to be outside as much as possible.  I have been incredibly worried about what I should be doing, about my health, and about my future.  Some days I feel like I’m going to explode, but being in my yard seems to be helping.  I’ve babied my roses, planned for new beds, created a new bed, and generally enjoyed being in my garden.  I even enjoy it when it’s too hot.  It just feels right, and I guess that’s okay.  I don’t want to spin out of control too much, but I do want to just keep getting things done.  It just feels right.

I’m sadder now than I ever have been, but I’m feeling tired of being tired.  I’m tired of crying and tired of sleeping.  I feel sadder than I ever imagined a person could feel, and I also feel calmer than I would have expected.  I just want to sit quietly in a beautiful garden and not stress out about things.  Of course, I have to create the garden I want, but it just feels right, and I’m going to try to let myself be.

One of the things I’m doing later this year is to get a bunch of people a flowering tree to plant in Mom’s memory.  I got my trees ordered this week, and they will arrive around Thanksgiving.  It’ll be a nice time to plant.  I hope that goes down well for everyone.

I don’t know what will happen next week.  I feel lost today, but I hope each day surprises me by being better than I expected.

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Planting season is pretty much over for most of us, and now we enjoy the gardens we put together for the summer.  I have been giving some thought to which steps to take next on my landscape plan.  I’ll definitely want to plant trees and bulbs in the fall, and I want to start thinking about specific varieties of anything I might want for Spring 2019.  I like having a plan.  While I’ve been looking this year, I’ve kept thinking about how fun it would be to have a themed flowerbed or garden.

I worry about America’s future at the moment.  I love this country, and it seems like those who do not are successfully usurping authority and trying to reshape this into an authoritarian country.  So, I feel compelled to wax nostalgic about my love of this country in various ways.  So, in that spirit, here are some suggestions for a patriotic flowerbed.

Go easy on the decor and ornaments.  A few things are good, but you don’t need flags & pinwheels & bows covering everything.  Just try some accents.  What I love about the wood flag is that it allows the flowers to do the work, while still giving that Americana vibe.  One garden gnome, a bird house, a few stepping stones, or even an eagle for your porch is enough to convey the idea without beating the theme to death.

Here are some plant suggestions.  I’ve tried to include things that allow for color throughout the year, and obviously not all plants work in all places.  These are just my own suggestions.

Not into the red, white, & blue color scheme?  Try creating a First Lady Rose garden.  Here are some of my favorites:

Adding a military gnome or classic monument can help personalize the garden.  A Statue of Liberty or Mt Rushmore souvenir added to the right spot in a garden would be fun.

Here are some more America themed flowers that I love

Ambitious indoor gardeners might even want to try a First Lady Orchid or two.  Here are two I really like

Want to do something fun, but you already have a garden, why not paint some stars on the lawn for the summer.  Use building site spray paints.  As the grass grows and is mowed, they will disappear, but they will be fun for the 4th of July, Memorial Day, or for an event.

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This is been an interesting week.  I’ve been able to think about what it means to be proud, as LGBT Pride Month draws to a close.  What is it about being a gay person that is worthy of pride.  So many non-LGBT folks misunderstand the whole issue.  Pride is not just about loving who you are.  That is certainly important, and factors greatly into the concept of gay pride.  The other element is loving who you are in spite of the oppression of society at large.  It’s about saying that being authentic is more important than letting society’s negative messages dictate the aspects of one’s life.  Straight people don’t have to think about it in the same terms.  And now I’ve opened up a can or worms.

Oppression.  It’s hard to explain this concept to those who don’t have to deal with it.  I did not choose to be gay.  It hardly bothers me, but it wasn’t like I was offered options when I was born.  I am what I have always been.  That said, the fact that I am gay factors into so many of the decisions I’ve had to make in my life.  Things have changed in recent years, but I still couldn’t just plan a vacation to anywhere on earth I wanted to go.  I’d need to research and find out how hostile a country is to the LGBT community before doing so, otherwise I could find myself in a situation.  I have to consider carefully which jobs to apply for, as it is still legal in most places (Oklahoma included) to fire a person for being gay.  I have kept my distance from the church I grew up in, and where I would still attend.  I don’t want to make other people uncomfortable, and they would.  When I read a magazine or watch TV commercials, the message is always that straight people can show their affection in public and gay people cannot.  Well, 99.9% of the time, and even then only in places that are safe for the message.  If it ever came up, I currently have the right to marry the person I love, but that is a very new thing.  And it’s another place where people misunderstand how rights work.  I don’t understand what people mean when they say that gay people being given the same right to marry as straight people is giving us “more rights.”  It’s really just the same, and the idea that I always had the right to marry as long as I married a woman is dismissive and ridiculous.   I would love to raise children, but it can be hard to find a place to adopt children as a gay person.  Some ignorant people think it matters, or that gay people cannot have the values necessary to raise children.  That’s just misinformation used to prevent children in need from receiving the homes they need.  And now we are starting to see government-sanctioned discrimination, specifically those who offer goods or services to the public being allowed to exclude gay people for simply being gay.  There are multiple issues I have with this whole thing.  First, if you offer things to the public, you don’t get the right to pick and choose your customer.  These people denying cakes to gay couples aren’t likely asking their other customers questions to determine if their beliefs line up.  And that makes the whole thing arbitrary.  If a company want to only bake cakes for Baptist weddings, or for Catholic weddings, that would be a business model that allowed for an exclusive clientele and would not be discriminatory.  My other big issue with these “religious freedom” people is that refusing to do business with gay people actually negates their argument.  Jesus did not say to love your neighbor, except that one over there.  He did not say be in the world, not of the world, unless you see a gay guy and then don’t even be in the world.  If you are saying that serving those you don’t understand goes against your beliefs, then I don’t understand what beliefs you are even trying to defend.  It’s not Christianity.  It seems that there is a new ‘Murica religion, based on the idea that if you are not white, straight, and wrapped in an American flag, you are the enemy.  It’s a cult, not a religion.  Straight people don’t have to deal with things like this, specifically straight white people.  And when I hear people talk about “Straight Pride Month” or things of that nature I get frustrated.  Every month is “Straight Pride Month,” and y’all don’t have to fight for dignity.

And so it is sometimes hard to keep my head up as a gay person.  The world sometimes comes for us, and being proud is about saying “not today Satan.”  It’s about showing that what other people think of us is not our problem, and it is about expressing our true selves.  Because if we stop fighting and stop showing that we exist, we will be slowly asked to get back into the box and hidden away again.  Things have been getting better for a while now, and I hope that these recent slips backward are just a blip, but we have a long way to go.

In other news, I got the new part of the flowerbed mulched.  It’s looking good.  I will eventually need to add edging of some sort.  I don’t really know what I want there.  The crapemyrltes I planted have started showing new growth, and the roses are continuing to do well.. mostly.  The JFK & Copper roses did not make it this year, and I’ll just take that as an opportunity for new roses next Spring.  I’d love to find a Herbert Hoover or a Mark Twain, or maybe even a Mme. Alfred Carrière climbing rose.  I did get a couple of arborvitae, which I had intend to not plant until fall, but they were a good price and I don’t mind keeping a close eye on a couple for the summer.

I’ve started feeling more like getting back to the business of living my life.  It’s remained a challenge for me, but I’m trying.  Just staring off into the distance doesn’t solve anything.

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It’s been a stormy weekend, which I love.  The rest of the week felt  a little chaotic, but life in general seems a little chaotic right now.  I did start working on an art project, which I hadn’t done in a very long time!  I’m excited about it, but more I’m excited to just get a few things done finally.

I’ve been working on my Thoughts On Humans series, and I’m enjoying writing it.  I do worry that I babble a lot and say very little, but I’m hoping that I get better at making coherent thoughts as I do it more.  I’m also trying to figure out how to get the word out that I’m active again.  I love having people who are reading and commenting, but I had been inactive for so many years that I need to rebuild that group.  I don’t want to annoy folks for sure, but I do want to figure out how to get the word out.

This world seems to be falling apart.  I try to keep my politics to myself, but I cannot fail to comment on the imprisonment of children whose parents are seeking asylum.  I don’t know why anti-immigrant sentiment has gotten so bad, but it is unAmerican to not allow in those in need of help or in search of new opportunities.  There is never a time when someone needs to be repressed.  When we lift people up, we all rise and this world becomes a better place.  There is a persistent narrative being pushed that immigrants are coming to take our jobs and commit crimes against us.  That is blatant racism in my opinion.  There aren’t droves of people just waiting to come destroy us.  We are a melting pot, a mix of native, immigrant, and forcibly relocated people.  We are a country without a single culture or color, a land where the rest of the world should be able to look and see endless diversity.  Tribalism and racism dressed up as nationalism is unacceptable.  It’s also antithetical to the values so commonly invoked: American, Christian, human.  Hate cannot be defeated with hate, and so the way forward is difficult.  Those of us who believe that loving our neighbor is a core piece of our morality will have to work hard to combat the hate with love.

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It’s been another week when I’ve felt like I am moving slowly and the rest of the world is rushing around me.  I find myself increasingly thinking to myself that I want to show Mom a video or picture or craft project.  It’s frustrating.

I planted 3 crapemyrtles.  I’m really working toward my gardening plan that I’ve been working on since last year.  Tomorrow is two weeks since I planted all the roses out here.  9 of 11 have growth on them already and the two that don’t look alive still, one more than the other.  I did also plant 6 rosa rugosas, but those don’t have growth on them.  I’m keeping my fingers crossed and not putting too much pressure on it all.  I also found some Virginia Creeper growing up the back of the house, which is great.  I want it there so I hope it makes it.  Oh, the lawn mower finally was returned after being repaired.  So, I mowed.  It had been so long that the lawn is having a hard time recovering, but it will in time.  Hopefully we can get some rain soon.  That will help.

I’ve been much more interested in being alone this week.  I think everyone has really.  That said, things seem less… desperate?  I don’t know how to articulate, but I know there are many people who instantly know what I’m talking about.

Happy Father’s Day, Dad!

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I have never been very much into gardening.  I love having things growing around me, but the process of actually putting those things in the ground and taking care of them… no.  But I’ve found myself with a lot of need for distraction lately.  So, I have turned to gardening.  In the heat.  It;s keeping my brain occupied, but I also keep remembering something my brother talks about all the time: managing one’s expectations.

For years, I’ve watched my parents return from nurseries and garden centers with car loads of beautiful plants for the flowerbeds, but with no idea where they will go or who will plant them.  Inevitably, most of the plants would end up underwatered, unplanted, neglected, or planted in the wrong spots.  The whole ordeal that had started off as fun would end up a disappointment, and a source of frustration.  The expectations did not meet the reality.  The way they managed that was to try to change the reality around them, but that never worked.  Brent’s point was always that it was the expectations that were the problem.

I lived for many years in Alaska.  I love the climate that promotes lots of beautiful growth, but with lots of shade and very little heat.  I would love to have a garden full of cypress trees draped above head, ferns popping out along the bases of the trees, and fuchsias in hanging pots lining the porch.  Moss would grown on the roof of the shed and everyday a light rain would keep the soils moist and the plants would grow up around me and there would be flowers in bloom all summer.  I want a beautiful deck to enjoy the cool evenings and have people over.  Unfortunately, that is not the situation I find myself in.  If I was constantly trying to make that happen, I would spend a lot of my time disappointed and convinced that gardening doesn’t work.  What I have to do is work within the framework available to me.

I want tall shade plants:  Junipers and crapemyrtles are excellent plants that grown to 10-14 feet and provide a great amount of shade.  They have the added benefit of attracting birds and butterflies.  So, I am planning a landscape that depends on these two plants primarily as shade plants.

I want lots of flowers:  Roses.  Roses in Oklahoma, well in my part of Oklahoma, require little care and bloom almost all year.  Climbing roses tied against the house give a nice shade to the inside and allow for the appreciation of blooms.  I also cannot think of a flower that comes in a greater variety of shapes and sizes.  I’ve had a lot of luck with roses, so I’ve popped them in strategically around the house.

I want plants growing on the ground that aren’t grasses:  Grasses are a pretty common xeriscape option, especially as I live on the border of two grass prairies.  I don’t care for them though.  What I do love is vinca, or periwinkle.  Vinca keeps my flowerbeds full of green leaves without having them be full of weeds and grasses.  It also helps keep my soils moist, which the other plants appreciate.

Moss growing on the roof??? Okay, I admit this one is harder to substitute.  So, I’ve decided to try Virginia Creeper.  It does grow wild here, but usually deep in the wooded areas.  If I can provide the right amount of moisture, I’m hoping I can get this creeping vine to grow up the side of the metal shed or vinyl siding on the house.  This one is going to require more effort, and I plan to start it next Spring.

Daily rain?  Now I’ve gone too far!  Brent and I have talked a lot about irrigation systems.  I’m going to invest in the right things so that next year I can have both irrigation and misting available around the house.

I want a new deck:  My back porch is rotting.  It’s time for it to go, and with Brent’s help I’d like to add on a ground level deck with steps down from the house.  It’d be a nice place to spend evenings, as the back yard gets all the evening shade.  That project is happening this fall.

When I look at my plans, they seems overly ambitious.  I worry I’ve gone too far with what I want to do.  Maybe I have.  I’m trying to keep it simple, space out my work, and achieve something more than I have now.  And I have probably set my expectations too high.

So, I’m not going to be creating a replica of the gardens of Versailles, and I won’t be building a living sculpture.  There won’t be any sidewalks with flowers arched above to take a stroll through or fountains with flamingos.  That’s okay.  It doesn’t need to be outlandish to be beautiful.  My plan will probably get pared down over time, or I will wait another year to complete parts of it.  It will be mine, and that is what I’m excited about.  I never really cared about gardening until I started getting my hands dirty.  It’s fun to transform a landscape and to see the plants take shape over time.Continue Reading