Happy Anniversary to my wild man!
We were young marrieds when England's The Troggs
gave us this 1966 version of Wild Thing......
"...you make my heart sing.
You make everything groovy.
Wild thing,
I think I love you."
Even in high school I was attracted to this guy
who I thought was a hood.
All these years later I'm still in love with this man
who thankfully is not a bit prissy,
but is still a bit of a wild thing.
Where all our neighbors mow their lawn like it's a
G.I. haircut, my man didn't think twice before
agreeing to my request for a large patch left wild.
At first grasses just grew to seed there.
Soon other wild things grew.
You might call them weeds,
I call them wild things.
My man stood up to the power company who wanted
to cut down a long length of hedgerow
that gave us privacy from the road.
It is there that wild roses grow among cedars.
Blackberries thrive and seed pods form.
Deer already nest in our wild garden,
rabbits run safely out and in again.
A strange thing happened during our first summer
here at our new home.
At first RH brought home bright colorful annuals,
oranges, reds, yellows.
I picked out blues and purples and whites,
perennials whenever possible.
By August, after I'd a thousand times pointed out
how much more pleasing my colors looked
with this old 1935 cottage than his,
I think he began to come around,
without even realizing it--
and honestly, isn't that the best way where
husbands are concerned?
He came home with 12 pots of these...
He had fallen in love with Northern Sea Oats.
I did too.
You'd have to be there to appreciate them.
They whisper when the wind blows,
they move gracefully,
nodding and waving as we sit by them.
They're planted all through the new butterfly
garden RH built for me,
to see from my big kitchen window over the sink.
But one plant went in an old pot from the old house
that had lost its bottom.
He planted purple butterfly bushes and purple lantana
and the butterflies came to flutter and feed.
I chose one white coneflower that he insisted
would die but it hasn't.
Next year I want more of these because
the butterflies and bees love it too.
There's still far too much mulched area
that I hope will gradually shrink as the plants spread.
My wild man has still not given up his mulch
obsession from his early garden center days.
Both of us are now obsessed with Autumn Joy,
only one plant went in the butterfly garden but it has
been so lovely as it's turned from white to pink
and now in October to red,
that we will transplant the three that went in the
front garden here next spring,
where the deer won't be able to get to them.
The previous owners had already planted four
varieties of ornamental grasses around the property,
and they are tasseling pretty now.
So we have added to them with others.
Because I think I've convinced my wild man
that it is these kinds of subtle earthy plants that suit our
1935 cottage that is far from a dainty storybook one.
When all but two rooms and the bathroom are
paneled in 11 inch knotty pine boards,
ceilings too,
this is not a dainty cottage.
It is an earthy one,
home to a wild man and his wife.
Excuse me while I go wake him up and ask him
if he's forgotten that he promised me a path
and small terrace by the butterfly garden
out of that stack of Tennessee Crab Orchard Stone
that's been sitting there for a month now.
Otis, would you remind him of that?
