Wildflowers Three

When I became a home-owner, I was most excited about the yard. My goal is to slowly conquer this lot of land with only native species. As goes everything with plants, it will be a slow process. There are well-established non-native plants— hydrangeas, English ivy, a stray Mexican sunflower, even a Taiwan Cherry— that there’s no sense in killing.

“Even if they’re not native, they’ll do fine,” squawked my neighbor. She thinks she knows everything about gardening and has an opinion on every leaf I rake.

“No,” I replied, “if they’re not native they don’t belong.”

The point was willfully lost on her. She said I shouldn’t worry about what kind of tree I planted in the back corner so long as it grows well. She sort of huffed and rolled her eyes and told me about how much her husband used to like snowshoeing.

Anyway.

There’s an analogy to be made at the intersection of re-nativizing my backyard and a White woman refusing to understand why I’d care, but as goes everything with plants, finding the words for it will be a slow process.

In the meantime, although they aren’t actually comics today, I hope you’ve enjoyed these hand-drawn exemplars of plants native to New England. If you did, click like and share this post with someone.

Thanks for reading.