Intermission

Today marks the fourth anniversary of the Plano Prairie Garden blog. I started the blog in 2009 with comments that I wanted to try something new and to “provide documentation that my landscape is planned and intentional...just in case a Code Enforcement Officer comes knocking on my door and threatens me with a citation if I do not mow my weeds.”

Fortunately, I have not had any problems with the city or neighbors and several neighbors have even commented on how much they like my garden. Nobody else has removed their lawns, but maybe that will come in time.

Gardening is often a solitary endeavor and this blog has given me the opportunity to share my garden with people from across the country and across the world that can appreciate my gardening endeavors, but would never see them otherwise.

Many of the people that visited the blog left comments and links to their own blogs which gave me the opportunity to get to know them and their gardens. A few of those cyber visitors (Pam and Shirley) even visited the garden in person and it was a pleasure to meet both of them.

I have enjoyed sharing my Texas native plants with the world. It is funny how many people in Europe have a greater appreciation for North American native plants than we North Americans. Maybe we think that a flower we see growing in a field or vacant lot is a weed and too common to be cultivated in a landscape.

But if you really want to see common, just take a look at your typical suburban landscape. From sea to shining sea, most of them look exactly alike: a lawn of imported grass, a couple of trees, a row of shrubs against the foundation of the house and maybe a flower here and there.

Not only are most of these landscapes boring, but they do nothing for the wildlife that is trying to survive among us. I know the larger wildlife like bobcats, wolfs, coyotes, raccoons, possums, and armadillos that used to make this place their home are unacceptable to most people in suburbia, but we can plan landscapes that will help out the birds and butterflies and maybe even the bees and lizards. That is where native plants come in because they produce or attract the food that the wildlife has evolved with for ages.

I hope that this blog has helped a few people gain an appreciation for native plants that they may not have had before. It is possible to make an attractive landscape with native plants and you don’t need to go the extremes that I did. You can fit natives into the typical suburban landscape I described above.

Anyway, after all of that rambling, the purpose of this post is to tell you that I have decided to take a break from the blog and I don’t know if it will be for a while or forever.

Even though I only post a couple of times a month, I spend more time than you would believe putting a post together. And, personally, I think the posts are getting redundant and boring. I don’t want to be like the guy that shows boring home movies to his sleeping audience.

I do have a couple of ideas for new themes I could post about in the future, so check back. You never know. 

I plan to add to the blog a list of the plants in my garden and links to other blogs that I enjoy. Things I have planned to do for a long time, but never did. 

One more thing. The blog spam is getting out of control so, in a few weeks, I will turn off the ability to leave comments on the blog. If anyone should want to get in touch with me, I will give you my email address in the form of a puzzle (to avoid more spam). My email address is my last name followed by my first name (with no characters in between)@yahoo.com. You can find my name in the 2010 Dallas Morning News story about my garden. Follow the link here.

And now a parting video that you may have come across before. I first saw this video clip about a year ago and I never got around to posting a link. I have watched the clip at least a dozen times and I am amazed every time. Watch it in full screen. This is why we need to grow more native plants.

So long for now. I will keep in touch through your blogs.