gardening ovenbird The yard is still a wild place, despite my vague attempts to impose some order. It’s been nine years since I put in a garden edging and turned the soil and planted perennials and wished them good luck. I’ve done little to maintain it since, other than some uncommitted weeding. The columbine spreads more each year, aided by my love of shaking out its seed pods onto the earth in the fall. The lily of the valley has jumped the border and is spreading into the lawn. The Irish yew has grown to nearly eight feet of evergreen death. I should do something about the encroaching creeping buttercup, but its yellow flowers are pretty in the early summer and I haven’t bothered to uproot it. Today I found a tree root as thick as my arm rising through the patchy expanse of grass that fails to thrive in the thick shade. I am a negligent gardener giving suggestions in the form of seeds but making no attempt to force an outcome. Small animals move under leafy cover. Slugs eat the hostas. Snails hide under the flattened remains of the snowdrops. This yard belongs to them. A skilled gardener would kill and deter everything they didn’t intentionally cultivate. I am a poor gardener. I let everything grow. 260421 what's it to you? who go blather from