Thriving

 See this? 

This sad clump of fernlike leaves is what's left of my yarrow (this is the last bed I have to mulch, and I haven't yet, so it looks even sadder). 

Last year, it looked like this: 

Well, the mulch is way better and there's actually flowers on it.

This year, I have an influx of adorable but insanely destructive baby critters that are decimating certain plants in my garden, yarrow among them. It's hard to be mad at these guys, but I am: 

Awww, baby bunny (responsible for lobelia murder)

Awww, twinsies fawns (responsible for eating SPIKY and POISONOUS plants because they don't know better)

 

Awww, begrudgingly cute baby groundhog (responsible for so much destruction, yarrow included, but they look like funny fat little otters running across the yard)

Grrrr. You can see that in the back, there is NO SHORTAGE OF GREEN THINGS TO EAT, but all these babies just love the gourmet stuff I've apparently put out just for them. 

However, the other day, while bringing weed refuse down to a pile we have at the bottom of our hill, I found THIS: 

 

Snuggled in the weeds, and so much poison ivy, was YARROW! Tons of it! I have two theories: 

1) When I deadheaded the old yarrow seed pods, I brought them down here with the refuse and they sprouted

2) Baby destructo rodents POOPED OUT yarrow seeds and BAM! new yarrow they don't eat in an unexpected place! 

It made my day. I was so upset about the loss of my carefully cultivated plants, chomped on by the abundant wildlife that, to be fair, was here first, that I totally missed this resurgence of pretty plants in a totally unexpected place. 

I was stuck on what I wanted things to look like that I ignored what works in this wild place, but the beauty erupted elsewhere, where it was more suited to thrive. Maybe even growing out of a pile of shit. 

DOES THIS SOUND METAPHORICAL? 

There's that whole "bloom where you're planted" saying, but I also feel like you could upend it to "don't force things that don't work out, instead go with what blooms where it ends up." 

What's frustrating is that a lot of plants that are being devastated this year were fine last year, but that works too -- sometimes there are unexpected setbacks. Learn from them and adjust. 

I appreciate the wild flowers that crop up unexpectedly and don't get eaten: 

milkweed (asclepias incarnata)

wild bergamot or bee balm (monarda fistulosa)

Purple vetch (grossly known as hairy vetch or vicia villosa, an invasive weed when not naturally prettifying a meadow)

Butterfly weed, a type of milkweed (asclepia tuberosa) you can actually buy but grows naturally in our meadow hill

Black-eyed Susan (rudbeckia hirta) that the groundhogs chow down on in my garden but leave alone in the pretty meadow hill where they grow naturally

I won't get more of what was clearly a very expensive salad bar, and instead will focus on the plants that clearly do well, which is a shrinking list due to deer, rabbits, groundhogs, crappy soil, and walnut trees (they make the soil poisonous, yay). 

There is beauty though in all the things that thrive wildly here in this somewhat inhospitable plot of land. I will focus on that rather than mourning (too much) all my pretty plants lost.

Want to read more #Microblog Mondays? Go here and enjoy!