“In Nature there are neither rewards or punishments: There are consequences.” - Robert Green Ingersol
Hello All!
Wowee, what a year. I will always complain about being too slow, but last season I was complaining about being too busy! Which I don’t want to get in the habit of, because I definitely don’t want to jinx myself. Both sides of the coin are stressful, but I need to suck it up and get over it. Slow is BAD, Busy is GOOD! Repeat. How about steady? Yeah right, not in this business. Feast or famine:) Oh, and it was a little hot. A special kind of hot. For like 120 days straight. And I have to say, I really didn’t do too well in it. My body and my mind were crying out “What the hell are you doing out here!”. Ugh. Oh well, too bad, I’m not going anywhere or doing anything else anytime soon, so can someone please invent a whole body mister that I can attach to my hat? At least I don’t sweat like Scotty, who actually needs to bring 3 changes of clothes a day, and sloshes around in his boots all day:) Fun stuff.
So, Covid got me. It was this past April, a week before my vaccine, at the start of one of my biggest jobs of the year. And since it was April, one of THE busiest months, I had to keep plugging away (outside employment=good). Did you know that Advil is the best invention EVER?!! The only way I got through the virus was to pump those brown beauties into my body for 2 weeks straight, all day and all night! Otherwise I would have been curled up into a ball on somebody's lawn. My daughter Cassy, who gave it to me (damn teenagers), was the only one other than me that got it, no one else. Until Christmas. Our son Quincy (damn teenagers) tested positive right before Christmas, and I told him that Santa Claus was skipping on his presents this year. I wanted to strangle him. We were all vaxxed, it still got us, BUT, the 5 of us had a pretty amazing holiday anyway. We had our outdoor fire pit, our Advil, our spirits, and our music blasting:) What could be better!
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PLANTS MATTER
Let’s talk a little about GROUNDCOVERS! KM Gardens is all about low maintenance, we want you to enjoy the garden, not curse it. We end up planting loads and loads of groundcovers, because: They’re easy; They look good; Phenomenal erosion control; Weed smotherers; Wildlife habitat. Instead of just putting mulch under trees, we push using plantings that will cover the ground over time. When you have a beautiful native tree(s) (Oak trees rule!) covered at the base with groundcovers you are also providing winter habitat for all those beautiful butterflies/caterpillars, who hibernate under leaves/plants as adults, fall to the ground as caterpillars and snuggle down, burrow in the soil, or spin a cocoon in the leaf litter (leave the leaves in the beds for the hundred millionth time. Bye Bye leaves, Bye Bye butterflies. Imagine the difference we could make for these beautiful creatures if everyone did it!). There’s a lot of variety to choose from, so forget about the Vinca (yuck), the non-native Pachysandra (double yuck), and the English ivy (come on now). They’re invasive, and have no respect! They’re jerks that escape into our natural areas, and outcompete our native flora.
INSECTS MATTER
And remember to include native plants that support only a certain type of species. A great example of this is Milkweed for the Monarch. The Monarch is so beautiful. Who really wants to see them go extinct and disappear? Of course, no one, but they’re close. They have seen a 96% decline in their numbers in just 10 years. 10 YEARS! Monarchs are what we call a species with specialized needs (Scott has said that I also have specialized needs, or that I was “special”, something like that, so I reminded him to keep up his game, I have no time for slackers). They only feed and lay their eggs on Milkweed; nothing else. There are so many other issues (pesticides, weather, agriculture management, etc) that are contributing to their decline. Their life cycle is so complex it's hard to pin everything down from one year to the next, but planting for our insect friends, well, we can all do that. 90% of leaf eating insects are specialists, so if we can be part of the solution, and not the problem, we could do wonders for the environment we live in. We can provide you with a great list of NATIVE beauties to plant for our special friends. Starting this season, and go!
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“We are showered every day with gifts, but they are not meant for us to keep. Their life is in their movement, the inhale and the exhale of our shared breath. Our work and our joy is to pass along the gift and to trust that what we put out into the universe will always come back”-Robin Wall Kimmerer
HUMANS MATTER
In closing, I have a need to talk about something a bit serious. Scott told me not to go off the deep end with this stuff, but it permeates me, every waking moment, to the core of my being. I do not consider us just a Landscape company, that’s too simple. I consider us stewards of our land, protecting and nourishing our environment for our current and future generations. When it comes to our climate crisis, too many people go the way of saying “Why should I care, I’ll be gone when the s*** REALLY hits the fan”. Great. (Like I have said in a past blog, Climate change has always been a part of our world, but it’s the crazy, fast RATE of change that is the issue because of you know who)
Those who know me, know that I do not practice or follow any organized religion, but I do believe that the energy we put into this world matters, and that it continues in our children. As a parent, you do everything in your power to protect your kids, but sometimes the long term seems too abstract to see the earth they are now inheriting.
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We have the ability to destroy our environment at a rapid pace, but we also have the smarts to restore it. Will we do it? The problem is that there is a lot of STUPID out there. I’ve always told my kids that you will make mistakes for the rest of your life, that’s ok, making mistakes is a part of your journey into who you will become. Trust the journey. You learn from your mistakes, you adapt, you move on. But if you keep making the same mistakes, over and over again, well then you’re just stupid. (TRUST THE JOURNEY, a phrase I need in my face at every turn. It’s so hard to trust it, but I know that it is true. If I’m not being stupid, that is:)
And that’s what we humans continue to do, we keep making stupid decisions and choices knowing that they are destroying us, and everything that sustains us. Stupid and more stupid, over and over and over again. Are there consequences to our stupidity? Of course there are. We teach our kids that there are consequences to all things in life, but there are too many adults that apparently didn’t get that memo.
My 16 year old daughter Cassy recently asked me “Why isn’t anyone doing anything!? Doesn’t everyone know about climate change at this point”. I shook my head and answered, ”Oh yeah, everyone knows, many have known for over 30 years what the consequences would be if we didn’t change our habits. But we humans, well, we’re greedy and shortsighted (and stupid).” I then told her that she could help by turning off all the lights she turns on, in every frigging room after she leaves, that would be a start!
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Mama nature shows no mercy, FYI, and whether we like it or not, she will be the equalizer in this deal. She knows no empathy, no kindness, no equality. She is indifferent. She is brutal. Remember Ida this summer? Well, Downingtown sure remembers nature's wrath (thank goodness for all the majestic Sycamore trees along the stream banks of the Brandywine creek, holding them steady). There will always be balance in this world. Good and evil are always in battle, it’s a neverending story. I tell my kids that there will always be scary monsters out there (they live in the black dyed mulch), but most can be shooed away. I tell them, EDUCATE yourselves with what is truth, (the truth may hurt, but lies will only make you lost), start paying attention to what is happening all around you, and be a part of the solutions not the problems, stop buying plastic water bottles, Josie!! VOTE-make yourself heard, because, just maybe, your life depends on it. We all screw up, but you do the best that you can do. This is not a tree hugging whiney plea to oh oh, please, please, save the earth, wah wah wah. This is an obnoxious blaring alarm:) Let’s stop being stupid. There are things that we as individuals can control, so let’s start there.
Did I mention that it was a long hot summer?:) I think my brain got fried, sorry for the rant.
Km Gardens will continue to nurture your nature, because that is something WE can control. We will continue to not only educate ourselves, but to spread what we know. Knowing what is real, knowing what is true, knowing the hard, scary facts about what has happened, what is happening, and what can happen. These are things we will confront every day as a Landscape company. We will be here to provide you with the opposite of the ugliness in this world, as much as we are able. Beautiful spring is almost here, and is a chance for new beginnings.
2022, here we come!
Peace
Kirsten and Scott
“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again: but already it was impossible to say which was which”-George Orwell-Animal farm
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