Healing Gardens

Body:

Open Creek

Lizzy and Adam

4.20.07 1 hour

Sat in the garden journaling. Adam gave Lizzy and I a tour.

4.21.07 Spent 2 hours in garden.

Today I walked around with my journal and made a list of plants present and plants desired. I sat and looked at things. I had a lot of questions about what should be weeded and cleared.

4.23.07 2.5 hours

Met Adam in the garden. We weeded lots of buttercup and trimmed sword ferns back to just the fiddleheads. I noticed what types of plants prefer growing beside rocks: Ferns, buttercups, creeping blackberry. We discussed some future pruning. Adam left and I continued weeding and then wrote in my journal for a little bit. I saw the humming bird again. It was all very nice.

Total Hours, Week 3: 3.5

4.26.2007 1.5 hours

Spent some time weeding huge buttercups from the mud in the creek and in the grasses along the creek. A little time journaling. It was sprinkling which maid weeding seem easier in the damp ground, but also made me cold.

4.28.2007 2 hours

Met Adam and Lizzy. I weeded around the hedge nettle by the bridge, trimmed sword ferns. I was unsure whether or not to pull out a lot of the grass along the bank. I wondered what could be done with the banks, they seem to be mostly weeds. Maybe some wildflowers? Sun-tolerant and attractive next to shrubs.

4.29.2007 2.5 hours

Met Lizzy and Adam. Made paths through horsetail, weeded horsetail from edges and around lupin and roses. Brought some home to dry for tea and hair rinse.

Total Hours, Week 4: 6

Saturday, Week 5 2.25 hours

Weeded horsetail and showed my friend Will the garden. He helped weed a bit.

Monday, .75 hours

Weeded, sat and journaled. It was gloriously hot and sunny. Lots of birds. I had never been there so late in the afternoon.

TOTAL HOURS, WEEK 5: 3

Total to date: 12.5

Plans: I plan to finish some pathways through the horsetail forest with mulch or stones, clear the dead matter out of the creek, and plant a cow parsnip if i can get one.

Thursday, Week 6: 1.5 hours

Spent some time weeding the path, then meandered down the creek for quite a ways and discovered a field of lupin. I sat in the sun and began journaling, took out my paints, but felt much more at peace not recording what I was seeing and just experiencing it. Made note of this.

Saturday, Week 7: 1 hour

Lizzy and I spent time after class weeding the path. It is very nice to work along side someone. It had me loose track of time.

Sunday, Week 7: 1 hour

Spent my time down-town at Radiance, researching in their library. Lots of useful stuff. I also noticed that they sell a lot of bulk native herbs.

Monday, Week 8: 1.5 hours

Planted something that had been left in the sight. Pretty sure it was catnip but maybe wild mint. I drew it in my journal and wrote a little. Planted it by the new path we made, but should check in with someone to make sure it will be happy there. Gave it lots of water. Checked on the cow parsnip. Seems a little floppy, but ok.

Wednesday, week 8: .5 hours

Watered the new plant and checked on some of the other new plantings. Spent some time sitting by the stream wondering if I should clear some dead stuff. I will need boots and gloves. ALso, should look for some clippers to prune spirea.

Total to date: 18 hours

Friday, Week 9: 4 hours

Lizzy and I spent some time weeding, watering, I pruned the Spirea. We checked on the Cow Parsnip, it looked dead. The Iris's looked a little sad also. Some time spent taking pictures. Then we worked on our presentation for a while.(I'm not sure if this counts as project hours.

Sunday, Week 9: 2 hours

After discovering mourning glory in the site, i decided to to a little reseacrch in it .I also had dreamed about it recently, and coming from the east coast, am not familiar with it as an invasive. One book, Pharmako Gnosis, It lists all known species of bindweed and its uses, mostly for divination, by indigenous peoples.

Total to date: 24 hours

Saturday, Week 10: 1.5 hours

Adam and I went to the garden. We weeded a little, transplanted a Lupin, cut back the Lupin stalks, and I pulled up some cattails that were growing into the spirea. We talked about cooking them, brought the tubers home and put the stalks beneath a tree to dry. It was raining a lot but I didn't mind.