Well, it’s early spring once again, and maybe this year, I’ll actually get around to doing it. “It” would be a wildflower garden. Just a small one for now–enough to attract a few insects, hopefully including butterflies–but I think this might actually be the year! I considered it in 2007, but decided it was probably more work than I really wanted to do. Last year, I actually looked at some native wildflower species and went outside to scope out where I might put it, but then it got to be April, and then May, and I sort of went, “Meh.” This year, I’ve found a vendor for wildflower seeds, chosen about $50 worth of a mix of full-sun (my back yard gets sun from dawn to dusk), medium-to-dry soil seeds called “Prairie Jubilee” that has a bunch of different native flowers and a few grasses for filler, plus some small packets of individual species for extras (specifically milkweeds for Monarchs and other flowers that attract butterflies and hummingbirds), and have decided where to put the wildflower patch. I have to remove the grass that’s already there, and I can’t fuck around because it’s already mid-March, but the seeds I chose don’t need any cold spell to “activate” them, so I think it’ll be do-able. In a perfect world, I would’ve started last autumn, but this isn’t a perfect world, and since autumn means the end of bug season, it’s not exactly my favourite time of year, so I’m less “inspired” to do….well, pretty much anything. Spring, though, is different. There are several ways to prepare for a wildflower garden (it’s not as simple as “chuck the seed out and wait”), but I think that since I’m just putting in a small bed for now, if I just cut away the sod to get down to bare ground, that will get rid of the turf and at least most potential weeds, then I can put on a layer of topsoil, mixed with a bit of sheep manure. Once that’s prepared and it’s warm enough, I’ll mix the seeds with some damp sand, rake the soil, broadcast the seed, rake again, roll it (for better seed-to-soil contact), and cover it with straw or lawn clippings or maybe even peat to help hold in moisture and prevent birds from seeing it as their personal all-you-can-eat buffet. I have to check again to make sure I’ve got enough annuals to look decent the first year, since perennials won’t do much until at least the second year, but I think that this time, I might actually have that much needed “round tuit”. :)  The worst of it will be removing the grass, but we ran into B. today, and he said that although D. has already moved to TX, he’s planning on staying there, and (much to P.’s relief), he’ll still be doing our lawn this year. If he’ll mow grass for cash when the heat index is 40C-plus, then I’m sure he’ll be willing to help me remove sod in less sauna-ish temperatures if it should turn out to be a bigger job than I want to do on my own (I’m pretty sure hell would freeze solid before P. would haul arse out there and do it with me). B. is dumb as a fucking post, and attempting conversation with him is nothing short of painful, but he’s young and strong, a hard worker, and not too expensive. 😉

See? I have one!