hagdinvincible

I’ve been in gardens all my life; my first memory is of sitting amidst my mom’s basil and marigolds and playing with a caterpillar while she was hanging laundry (my mom, not the caterpillar).

At my current location, I’ve been renting a weird little basement apartment a few blocks from downtown Morgantown WV for almost five years. Despite being right in the middle of a major university town, I lucked out—a small front yard with crappy soil but a lot of sun, a shady back yard with some trees, and a landlord who really doesn’t care what I do to it as long as I’m not burning a couch . . . .

The back yard has become terraced beds with shade-friendly ornamentals, such as astible, ferns, hostas, bleeding heart, impatiens, and coleus. The front started out as a nice little rose garden with a few colorful annuals, and has exploded over the years into an organic herb garden with salad greens around the edges, veggies in containers, and a patch of red raspberries that make me squeal with glee.

There’s an awesome, if casual, gardening community in this town. All my newest, coolest plants were gifts from random people, and I got rid of a TON of volunteer catnip and other plants by potting them up and handing them out at the co-op where I used to work.