Hello beautiful! I wanted to briefly acknowledge and welcome some of our new readers! For some of you, this will be your first newsletter. It’s a bit more philosophical than usual. In the future you can expect a variety of topics from DIY gardening, interviews with brilliant minds (excited to interview someone next week), garden tours, and guest articles. Hope you enjoy and forward to your friends! Now, onto the feature story~

On Focus

The human race is blessed with the gift of hindsight. Our brains are just smart enough to agonize when we do the wrong thing, but given an option we gravitate towards an easy short term reward every time. We are hard wired for urgency, which makes long term problems like climate change and a crumbling empire seem like someone else’s problem. Alas, this is just a gardening newsletter and I’m not here to discuss the Tiberian parasites running the country today. Rather, I want to dive briefly into opportunity cost and reclaiming your power one plant at a time.

Choices in Planting:

Decisions are hard. Committing to one thing closes the door to many other options. I’m convinced that many people love life on planet Earth, but they don’t know what they should be doing to help. When we are planting our gardens, we typically base our choices on aesthetics. What color is the plant? How tall does it get and how wide? At the typical garden center we are presented between a range of ornamental plants primarily originating in Asia. Trust me, my horticulture classes in school tasked me with memorizing their names and fall colors. 

For every pretty introduced shrub that we plant, we displace the opportunity to grow a native one in our gardens. (A native plant is a plant that has existed in your region for a loooong time.) There are two primary differences between native plants and introduced plants. Native plants support vast amounts of insects and wildlife, while introduced plants do not. You can think of native plants as those people that are friends with everyone, easy to talk to, and they might even ask you a question about yourself. Meanwhile, the introduced plants are pretty, but socially a bit of a wet blanket.

The opportunity cost comes when we choose the pretty introduced plant over the native plant that supports biodiversity. We should all consider if we are planting to support a healthy living community of wildlife, or for aesthetics only. This is a real choice we make, and many beginner gardeners are unaware that they are making it. We can and should be planting more native plants to support a healthy ecosystem in our backyard.

Finding your Power:

It’s not my intention to warp a joyous hobby such as gardening into a game with perilous stakes. Gardening is and should always be fun and relaxing - that’s its secret power. 

Many people feel like their stewardship of our planet is so quickly erased by the actions of billionaires jetting around the world. Gardening is a practice. It’s something we do that teaches us what it feels like to contribute in a positive way. In a sense, it’s a gateway drug to tapping into your own power to enact change. You can go out today and improve your local environment by replacing a section of your lawn with native perennials, or volunteering at a local park or nature reserve if you live in an apartment. That feeling becomes addicting. 

There is a word I often think of here, but hate to use because nobody knows what it means. Efficacy is “the ability to produce a desired or intended result.” It’s the part of you that believes in yourself enough to work for positive change. It’s the voice in your head that sounds vaguely like Lesli Knope from Parks and Rec. Gardening creates confident change makers.

In focus:

Focus is a byproduct of realizing what is a waste of time, and avoiding it. If I am rotting on my phone on the couch, by design I am not reading or baking a batch of delicious cookies. Labelling and removing the distractions helps make space for positive actions. The main goal in my garden is to provide habitat for birds, butterflies, and bees. So naturally I am wasting time mowing the lawn and should be ripping it out instead.

This Weekend in the Midwest Garden

We are still in the midst of lazy August, so I won’t ask too much of you this week.

1. Weeding: If your weeds exploded after all the rain we’ve been getting in the Midwest, then it is a good time to pull them while the soil is wet.

2. Plan Fall projects: Now is a great time to plan for Fall projects. Are there areas of your lawn that you can remove to plant pollinator patches? Daydream now, so you can take action in Fall. It’s a great time to plant!

3. Volunteer: Gardening is super local and done by cool people. I’d encourage you to find a local botanic garden or conservation park. It’s a great way to learn more and meet people. (You get good at something by aligning it with your identity. I.e. I should go out and pull weeds today because I am a gardener.)

Plot Notes

Not pictured: Weeding the garden and lounging in my hammock. I’ve been focused on filming native plants in bloom this last weekend! Next, I still need to remove some invasive trees and replace them.

What I Loved This Week

• Read: Illustrated History of Landscape Design - It begins with ancient urges to sculpt the earth and discussed many interesting gardens across the world.

• Watch: How Sunflowers Bring All the Bees to the Yard - Enjoy this well made video on Sunflowers!

• Connect: With Me! I’d love to get to know some of the new readers that joined the newsletter! Plus if you like to garden, then I can feature you here in a future article.

Reader Feature:

Submit a brag photo or gardening question for a feature in this section. 🌱

Written for 27 beautiful readers. 💌

Until next Thursday,
Ken Welch

About the Author

Ken Welch is a horticulturist and research professional at UW–Madison. He’s drawn to native ecosystems, community gardens, and helping others grow confidence in their craft.

Instagram | Bluesky 

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