Joan Schaupp

It's Flag Day June 14th and my garden is exploding. The wild phlox magenta and white stand tall behind the growing beds. The ostrich ferns have invaded the front yard garden. The wild geranium and native white daisies are sprinkled thru the herb beds. Red osier and pagoda dogwoods are expanding. Nature is planting with glee. She multiplies and multiplies. Her law is abundance if we nurture the soil, care for the earth. Nature rewards us when we heed the call of the earth, as Pope Francis proclaims in Laudate Se Lorraine Spence was so proud of the red osier dogwood when we bought the two-lot property in 1978. Bob and I added pagoda and grey twig dogwood, ostrich ferns and all have multiplied, racing thru the wild garden. Now I look around and see how the native plantings have grown. A naturalized woodland garden in the urban setting was a new thing back in 1978. It was all the rage in Fox Point, a Milwaukee suburb. and had surfaced in our Davis Woods area of De Pere with several preserved native woodlands. The oak trees thrive in this natural setting while they sometimes languish in a grass dominated front yard. Bob and I embraced this new way of gardening. We both love gardens and had visited many on worldwide travels, Central Park in New York, Sissinghurst, Versailles, Mount of Olives. I became a Master Gardener, took class after gardening class, joined Garden Club Des Peres. The designwriting of became my Bible Native wildflowers thrive in the woodland garden in spring and early summer, trillium, may apple, Solomon seal and false Solomon seal, Virginia bluebells, blue and white forget me nots. Then in summer the monarch butterflies embrace the milkweed that nature has planted This is a sharing garden. Nature, my late mother, and many friends have given gifts, the autumn sedum, forget me nots, ferns. I divide plants each spring and fall, give them to friends, children, grandchildren. I smile in spring at the gift of red osier dogwood and violets in bloom, then dig out new growth, plant in containers and share. Laudate Se .

One garden at a time. I told you to garden.