I love gardens, though I can't really say that I was loving mine these past few months. To be perfectly honest, the borders surrounding my lawn were so neglected that I was waiting for the garden police to knock on my door and issue me a fine or two. Ok, I may be exaggerating ever so slightly, but the garden was definitely needing some lovin, and for the past two weeks this is what it has finally been getting. Without the excuse of college hanging over my head there was nothing stopping me from reaching out and taking hold of those weeds that were greatly resembling shrubs, and left another month could be defined as trees, and finally doing something proactive - like pulling them out!
Oh, and another motivator may be the upcoming 'surprise' party I am in the process of planning for Joel. It may not be a surprise since I have spoken of it on this blog, but there is really no way I could hold a surprise party when I know very few of his work colleagues or the gym junkies that he hangs with, so there is really no way for me to find out without asking the man, is there? Yes, it is all so burdensome, but he will be turning 40 this year and I want him to have a blast!
So... back to the garden dilemma. I decided to just get cracking and began weeding somewhat obsessively. Well, nearly as obsessively as those little suckers sprout. When the garden was back to basics, Joel and I took a trip to my favorite nursery, Swansons and after planting $300 worth of plants the garden is finally beginning to take shape. Of course, I have now caught the gardening bug and returned to the nursery a few more times just because I needed one more plant to make my garden complete.
By now you may be wondering why on earth I named this post 'Gothic Gardening?' Well, on my last jaunt to Swansons Nursery, I managed to wander through an enclosure that I have never visited that houses the cafe and meeting room, as well as an assortment of gardening merchandise, only to find out that the upcoming lecture was going to be on Gothic Gardening. Your imagination may be going wild right now thinking of all the dark and gloomy plants/flowers to put in your garden, but has nothing to do with the topic of the lecture, which in fact was all about welcoming bats into your garden, and encouraging them to do so by planting the right plants. Now I don't know about you, but I adore bats and would love to welcome them into my garden, as long as they were safe from our four legged baby who loves to terrorize the squirrels and cats that try to scale our fence. However, she is kept indoors and the bats will be doing all their roaming at night, so I think it should work out just fabulous!
So there are a number of things a bat loving person can do to encourage these furry little creatures into your home garden. There are a number of plants you can plant that will attract certain bugs to your garden, that will attract bats. You can also place a Bat House for the cute little fellas to reside in. If you happen to be handy with a hammer you can make it yourself and Bats Northwest will even provide you with the correct specifications to do so, or you can just buy a basic box from Bats Northwest, or better yet just order a luxury bat box from the group, Bat Conservation International - you know the Bats deserve the best!
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