Plant Chatter That Keeps Me Going
This summer’s heat is oppressive. I am unable to be in the garden the way I use to be- I move like a slug; have sun spots popping up all over my exposed skin; need to soak myself with the hose every 30 minutes and repeatedly glance over at the shade before finally succumbing to rest under a tree and do nothing but sweat.
I am also generally less active than I have been my whole life, and I have fabulous flab appearing in all the usual places to prove it. What the heck is going on, besides menopause and global warming, or maybe that’s enough?
Every time I am out in this heat, I think of the millions of farm workers who have to endure it for hours everyday, most of them Hispanic. I am brought to my knees in grief about how our country is treating the Latino community, the very ones who are putting the food on our tables!! My dominant thoughts about the world go in an endless cycle of gratitude, grief, and overwhelm. I really cannot make sense of these times, almost feel like giving up completely and crawling under a rock. Yet the desire to understand and feel good about life won’t go away, so I keep showing up.
Within this laggard living, I’m still having my daily interactions with plants, as it’s my anchor to some kind of sanity. I mostly engage before 10am and after 6pm, and marvel at how the green ones take this heat so gracefully day after day. They are always teaching me something! Here’s An extract of some of Plant interactions of late…
Plant #1- Edgeworthia. I just learned of this shrub, also called Paperbush, in the Thymelaeaceae family, from my neighbor Alice. I thought I knew all of the shrubs we could grow in this zone, haha, right! The inner bark makes a paper that is used in Japan for banknotes. So when you grow this shrub, you can pretend you are growing money.
While Alice was showing me her gorgeous garden, she introduced the Edgeworthia as her favorite plant of all. I asked why and she said because it gives flare to the garden all year. In winter, it makes showy, yellow flowers that smell like Gardenias; in autumn, it’s silvery flower buds pop as the leaves begin to fall; and in summer, it’s an ornate shrub adding a green, hearty fullness to the landscape.
I looked it up and it’s hardy to Zone 7— we are Zone 6— but she’s had it for years, and it is thriving. She has it planted against her stucco patio, so I think having it in a southern, sheltered location may be the key in getting it to survive the winters here. We looked it up and it says you can propagate from cuttings, so she gave me several. It is not the ideal time of year, but we will see. I LOVE bonding with new friends over sharing plants! If I get it to grow, I will think of her when I tend it in my own garden.
Plant #2- Microstegium. I can still hear Marc Williams telling me each one can make a 1000 seeds, putting rabbit fertility to shame! So that’s how it suddenly appeared en masse in my woodland garden!!! Japanese Stiltgrass is so easy to pull, though. And it’s pretty- little wavy, thin grass swaying in the breeze, marching all over the world. So impressive.
But people curse it, hate it. As I pull it out of my violets, ferns, lungwort, wild pinks and wild-petunias, it reprograms the narrative in my head about ‘invasives,’ of which I will write more about soon. You can be sure we invited this plant here, as it didn’t seed it’s way across the Pacific on its own accord. Stiltgrass came as a packing material for Asian porcelain.
Plant #3 - Laportea. They are abundant along the nature trail which is great— I am happy! Native plant, beautiful plant, food plant, lepidoptera host. But they are also so happy, this Wood Nettle, growing and falling into the path and when we walk it, we get stung! I kinda like that, but I know I am not the only person walking this trail. I don’t want to bring the weed eater here because it’s the woods, ya know? Feels sacrilegious to weedeat in the woods. I don’t want to pull them all out by hand either, because that’s too painful and laborious, and as I mentioned before, I’m feeling sluggish these days. Plus, they are native, and I am not. I am not saying this has stopped me from making my mark on this land, but it does give me more and more pause. How many things do we remove to suit our skin? Where does that begin and end?
Plant #4- Crocosmia. Am I in Costa Rica or in the mountains of North Carolina? Lucifer’s Tongue is blooming right now and it’s a summer peak moment of feeling surrounded by miniature Birds of Paradise flowers. Hummingbirds are visiting the red inflorescences, and I am visiting the hummingbirds.
Hart and I have dug up countless corms of this plant, giving them away by request. Then I learn that C. × crocosmiiflora hybrids, which is most likely what we have, are “invasive” in North Carolina. There’s that word again. Invasive. Who coined that word? Anyway, the native hummingbirds seem to have no problem with this alien. They seem to have found a mutually beneficial relationship. I have too. Every July, when Lucifer sticks out his tongue for 3-4 weeks, I feel like I am in heaven.
Plant #5 Syringa. The Lilac Bushes. There is a row of Lilacs that had been neglected for years, scraggly, unnoticeable, hardly a bloom. Over this past winter, I gave them oodles of attention- songs, prayers, thoughts, weeding, pruning, mulch and bone meal. (Are you able to spread bone meal on your plants without going down the rabbit hole of whose bones they are? Not I.) And guess what? They bloomed like crazy! Maybe it was just the bone meal, but I like to think it was the songs and prayers, too.
I also hung a birdfeeder nearby and the birds used the lilac hedge as their perch while waiting in line for the feeder. The Lilacs, of course, loved the bird poop offerings. Cardinals, chickadees, nuthatches, mourning doves, goldfinches, sparrows, wrens, woodpeckers, juncos and titmice would all visit the Lilac hotel simultaneously. It’s the hedge where the Bobwhite I mentioned in an earlier post was camped out for a few days. It’s the hedge where now a brown thrasher comes everyday to sit underneath and escape the heat of the day. The Lilac hedge has returned, alive and gorgeous, and it makes me determined to keep on going too.
Mary Morgaine Squire
July 10, 2025
Under a Full Moon
Weaving Community~
~Kim Dinan, of the Center for Biological Diversity, interviewed me recently for the Food X Newsletter about wild plants, and how wildcrafting can help protect biodiversity. Kim is also featured in a previous issue about replacing pavement with pollinators- read about how and why she depaved her driveway and turned it into a garden! Very inspiring!
~United Plant Savers makes supporting their mission of research, education and conservation of native medicinal plants worth it for so many reasons, but free admission to more than 360+ botanical gardens and arboreta across North America and the Caribbean through the American Horticultural Society’s Reciprocal Garden Network is a really big one, y’all! Become a member if you aren’t already!
~Ok, you may have noticed I let go of my website when I let go of my Instagram, for numerous reasons. It’s been an important, needed, and overall good choice, but I miss some things in doing that, and one of them is the quotes I would share embedded upon photos I take. Well, I just figured out how to put Quotes my Substack home page and will be updating it pretty regularly, if you’re called to view:-)
The Eat Something Wild Everyday 2025 Challenge~
When I say wild, I mean anything that grew itself, escapees of cultivation included! Step outside and find a wild plant to taste!
Happy 75th Birthday to the man behind Herb Mountain Farm!!!
I love this and your perspective on our communities
Hooray for lilacs! I am actually "allergic" to heat (I have chronic urticaria which is triggered by heat), worse since perimenopause. I hear you! xo