Summer Solstice Wishes

Butterfly bush prepares to welcome a hungry bee.

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Today is the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year.  It is a good day to celebrate our wishes, especially those wishes that have finally manifested for us. 

I first wrote and published ‘A Dirty Hands Garden Club’ in the summer of 2014, and would like to share it with you, again.  I hope that you have found your own community of gardeners, naturalists, conservationists, teachers, artists, and plant nerds, as I have so happily found mine.

WG June 2018

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Asclepias incarnata

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I would love to join  a “Dirty Hands” Garden Club;

One whose members know more about fertilizers

Than they do about wines…

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I’d want our meetings spent wandering through nurseries,

Learning from  expert gardeners,

Or building community gardens…

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Echinacea and Monarda prove beautiful native perennials in our area.

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Not frittered away in chit chat over drinks and hors d’oeuvres .

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Hibiscus syriacus and bumbly

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And all of us would be at least a little expert in something, and

Glad to share what we’ve learned;

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Native ebony spleenwort transplanted successfully into this old stump.

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And we all would love putting our hands in the dirt

To help something grow.

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Lavender is still recovering from the winter.

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My club would collect species, not dues;

Re-build ecosystems rather than plant ivy and  box.

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Caladium ‘Fannie Munson’ with Bergenia and ferns.

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We “dirty hands” gardeners can band together

In spirit, if not in four walls.

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We can share plants and insights,

Instigate, propagate, and appreciate;

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Artemisia ‘Powis Castle’

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Perhaps we can even help rehabilitate 

Some sterile lawn somewhere

Into something which nurtures beauty

And feeds souls….

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Magnolia liliiflora is giving us a second flush of bloom in early summer.

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Others can judge flowers,

Decorate homes at Christmas

And organize tours.

These things are needed, too.

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Hibiscus syriacus, Rose of Sharon, opens its first blooms of the year.

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(But I would rather be out in the garden;

Where cardinals preside over the morning meeting,

And  hummingbirds are our special guests for the day.

The daily agenda ranges from watering to transplanting;

From pruning to watching for turtles and dragonflies.)

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We  wear our muddy shoes and well worn gloves with pride,

Our spades and pruners always close at hand.

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We converse with Nature,

And re-build the web strand by strand,

Plant by plant.

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Yucca filamentosa ‘Color Guard’ with Basil

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If this invitation speaks to you,

Perhaps we can work together

From wherever we might find ourselves

Around the globe.

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Colocasia ‘Mojito’ in front with C. ‘Pink China’ behind

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We can each put our hands in the dirt

and create a garden,

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Nurture Beauty,

And restore health and vitality to our Earth,

our communities, and ourselves, together.

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Native Oakleaf Hydrangea glows in the morning Solstice sun.

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Poem by Woodland Gnome 2014

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“The Holy Land is everywhere”
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Black Elk

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2018

About woodlandgnome

Lifelong teacher and gardener.

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