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#garden therapy
little-big · 5 months
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The evening light was pretty special tonight. I went outside after dithering a bit after work, and did some chores and then threw myself into some gardening to try and clear my head. Planted an evergreen blueberry bush. Topped up the compost. Repotted a wattle that I bought last summer holidays (somehow I’ve kept alive since then - it’s for the upcoming native garden). Potted two hanging baskets. It helped a little, and the things I’ve wanted to do for ages are now done.
And pears! All three of my pear trees have fruit this year, one of them fruiting for the first time ever! It’ll be a battle to keep the possums and rats away from them. I’m wondering if I can make some fruit bags from some sort of pliable steel mesh - last time I just used netting and they were chewed through overnight.
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panic-sl0th · 4 days
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My tomato and strawbb plants are on their waayyyyyy
My seedlings, the ones that popped anyways, are doing amazing and are ready to go in the ground after this weekend
ALMOST OFFICIALLY GARDEN SEASON, baybeez
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dead-n-cide · 7 months
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Garden therapy is one of the best things to happen to me. I just love all my lil babies so much and they will always listen to my problems 😂 anyway here's some progress pics!
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sheepyhollows · 2 years
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via almond milk
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fidgetwitch · 2 years
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Trimmed some things in the garden today, and planted some salad leaves. Merry had the very important job of sniffing dirt.
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teacheratnmbr3 · 4 months
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Happy weekend from ID Bishop's Castle
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wondersofgardening · 8 months
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The Serenity of Gardening: Mind, Body, and Earth in Harmony
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The Serenity of Gardening: Mind, Body, and Earth in Harmony
Amid the chaos of modern life, tranquility can be found in an unexpected place: the garden. Beyond its vibrant blooms and nourishing produce, gardening offers an array of benefits for the mind, body, and the planet. This post explores how gardening's transformative power cultivates serenity on multiple levels.
**1. Nurturing the Mind:**
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Gardening isn't just about planting seeds; it's about sowing mindfulness and reaping mental clarity. Engaging with nature reduces stress and anxiety. The rhythmic tasks of planting, weeding, and tending plants provide active meditation, offering solace in the present moment.
**2. Healing the Body:**
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Gardening's therapeutic impact extends to the body. Its movements improve flexibility, strength, and cardiovascular health. Sunlight exposure promotes Vitamin D production, crucial for bone health and immunity.
**3. Environmental Connection:**
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Each planted seed benefits the environment. Gardens attract pollinators, enrich biodiversity, and reduce carbon footprints. Growing your own produce reduces packaging waste. Composting kitchen scraps enriches soil and minimizes landfill waste.
**4. Lessons in Patience and Growth:**
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Gardening imparts patience and nurturing skills. Witnessing the cycle of life teaches resilience. Failures become lessons in adaptation, reflecting real-life challenges and fostering personal growth.
**5. Community and Connection:**
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Gardening unites people. Community gardens foster belonging and shared purpose. Sharing tips, produce, and stories nurtures relationships, building stronger communities.
**6. Sustainable Lifestyle:**
Gardening encourages sustainability beyond the garden. Attunement to nature leads to Eco-friendly choices, like reducing plastics and conserving water.
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Lastly, dear readers, Gardening transcends hobby—it's a journey of self-discovery, mindfulness, and Earth stewardship. As we nurture growth, we connect with ourselves, the planet, and others. Embrace gardening, whether in a backyard or on a balcony, and embark on a serene path of transformation—one seed at a time.
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themethereoncewas · 10 months
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Zaterdag 3 juni 2023... de 1e korenbloem is open
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jamesmapes · 10 months
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ineffable-suffering · 7 months
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Trauma-Dumping on your plants: The Anthony J. Crowley Chronicles
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This has been living in my silly head rent free for so long, I finally decided to slap it on here in hopes of thinking about it a little less (than three times a day. It's been years. I need to get over it.)
Also, I'm absolutely certain I'm not even remotely the first person to realize or post about this, since it's not the hardest of parallels to figure out. Alas, I still shall, because out of mind, out of sight and all that. So:
Let's talk about how Crowley is using his houseplants to work through his own Trauma of the Fall. Or, well, maybe not work through it per se, but more so roleplay it to give it somewhat of an an outlet because he never got over it. Lol.
It's not rocket science to figure it out and God Herself actually gives us a pretty spot-on explanation of it in her own narration.
Crowley's plants are perfect. They're, as God Herself tells us, the most luxurious and beautiful in all of London. He takes great care of them, waters them, mists them. Does any and everything to give them the perfect conditions so they won't have a worry in the world.
And yet, we're immediately shown that despite the seemingly perfect conditions they're living in, Crowley's plants still get *gasps quietly* spots. And we all know how Crowley feels about that:
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It seems like such an unnecessary tiny thing to get upset about, right? Like, plants get spots all the time. They're not perfect, they're part of nature and nothing is ever perfect in nature. Crowley would know that by now. Imperfection is the whole point of nature. If everything had stayed exactly the way it always was, nothing would have ever changed or evolved.
Besides, Crowley is a demon. If it were merely about aesthetics to him, he could easily miracle away any spot with a blink of his serpent eyes. But he gets so angry about it, it's almost comical. At first we think it's just to show us, the audience, that, in contrast to Aziraphale, who cares very dearly and lovingly for his books, Crowley is a mean, mean demon who, instead of being outwardly nice to the things he loves (like Aziraphale does), yells at his plants because he's a mean meanie.
But! If you look at the whole scene and what God says, it's pretty obvious what he's actually doing is something else entirely: "What Crowley does is he puts the fear of God in them. Or, the fear of Crowley. The plants are the most luxurious and beautiful in London. Also the most scared."
Folks, this man dude serpent is literally roleplaying the concept of God/Heaven threatening angels with their Fall in order to keep them obedient ... with his houseplants.
Have I mentioned yet that I am absolutely obsessed with him and also desperately wanna get him a therapy voucher?
Because what does he do once he sees a plant disobeying his rules of perfection and acting out? The same thing God did to her questioning, equally disobedient angels (including Crowley): Parade it in front of the very scared rest, making an example of it ...
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... only to then, well ...
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... quite literally chuck it out.
To anyone else, this seems like a completely ridiculous thing to do over a tiny, minuscule spot. There would have been a bunch of other ways to go about fixing that spot.
Figuring out what it was the plant needed that might not have been given to it yet.
Taking care of it in a different, individual way so it would have been able to thrive again.
Listening to the plant and letting it tell you why its spot appeared in the first place.
Telling the plant, that loves and relies on you entirely, you love it too, despite it not being without fault, despite of it not fully living up to your unreachable standards of perfection.
Caring for the plant not because you want it to be perfect, but because you're okay with it being imperfect.
(We're no longer talking about plants here, as you are probably aware.)
Alas, this isn't what Crowley does. Because it wasn't what God did, either. We still know very little about Crowley's actual Fall and the Fall of Lucifer and the rest. But we do know that Crowley was never like or even with them.
All he did was ask some questions. A tiny spot. A seemingly insignificant blemish in the luxurious, beautiful flora of Heaven.
And yet, before he knew it, he did a "million lightyear freestyle dive into a boiling pool of sulfur". Cast out, chucked away, just like his little spotty plant. And for what? Well ...
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... to keep the others angels plants check, for the rest of time.
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(Addendum from the comments: If we go by what the book tells us, Crowley doesn’t actually end up violently throwing out the ‚bad‘ plants. He just finds a different place for them and makes sure they‘re looked after. So much to him being a big, bad, meanie-mean demon.)
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zehwulf · 2 months
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Want to combat existential dread? Put a goddamn plant in some goddamn dirt.
SPECIFICALLY: a plant suited to your local area’s native ecology, and ideally one that’s considered a “keystone” species.
How does this fight existential dread?
I'm so glad you asked...
Plants are fuckin pretty: Bring some motherfucking beauty into your life.
Look at it: you are nurturing life! You are like unto a god. Or at least some sort of parental figure. Whatever: live your best “I may not always be able to get out of bed for myself, but the kids are counting on me, damn it” coping strategy life. 
But, like, low-stakes life, so if you fail it’s nbd: We’ve all been there, buddy. But a plant is even lower stakes than a fish, so even if you kill a few as you figure things out, the impact of any single failure is in the basement. And remember: the only difference between the number of plants a novice gardner kills versus the number a master gardener kills is that the master gardener will FUCKING BRAG ABOUT THEIR BODYCOUNT.
Gardening ticks a lot of common “how to fight depression” boxes: Probably, you will be moving your physical form about, and have some sort of schedule (watering, harvesting, admiring, whatever), and be getting outside where things like the sun can lightly damage you in a healing way, and you’ll be able to see physical results/rewards from your efforts. If you get out among actual trees, they’ll probably even shove some antidepressant-acting molecules up your nose holes (i.e., forest bathing; it’s a whole legit thing with science backing it up, but I’m too cynical and jaded to take the name seriously, I’m so sorry).
With EXTREMELY little effort, you can improve your hyperlocal environment in a visible way: Are you an 80s kid who hyperfixated on the Chernobyl disaster? Or a 90s kid radicalized by objectively terribly animated cartoons like Captain Planet and Ferngully? An 00s kid who had their mind blown by the BBC series Planet Earth and/or cried about WALL-E’s fuckin boot plant? ARE YOU A ONCELER KINNY WHO WANTS TO IMPRESS THE FUCKIN LORAX? Well, plant the right plant in the right spot and you’ll have made a small but material fuckin difference in your actual, physical environment.
Plants support & attract other fun creetchers to look at: OK, if you’re not excited by plants on their own merits, probably there’s something else in nature that you like; what is it? Birds? Snakes & lizards? A frog? Squirrels or deer or some other fluffy fucker? Motherfuckin bees and butterflies? WORMS? What’s your creetcher category of choice? Whatever it is, you probably have a buck-wild amazing representative of that category that lives in your IMMEDIATE area. Look them up and pick one; this is now your mascot, your child, your blorbo, your “just a little guy.” Want to see more of them? Or just Provide For Them? Well, local plants play a role in at LEAST their food, shelter, and reproductive needs—we’ll come back to this.
"All the magic of creation exists within a single, tiny seed." - Magi Lune, FernGully
All right, let's get into specifics under the cut...
OK but why does the kind of plant matter?
Right, so, a few reasons:
We Do Not Plant Invasive Species If We Can Help It: All plants are Good Boys by their nature, but for the same reason we don’t put an aggressively tempered working dog into a studio apartment filled with breakable things, we don’t put fuckin Golden Bamboo into a Northeastern United States garden. No, not even in a pot. It will escape. A plant is considered invasive if it outcompetes native/local vegetation to the point of displacing it, which creates food & habitat gaps in the local environment, in no small part because invasives tend to create monocultures, which are Not Good for a healthy environment.
Non-native species are harder to keep alive: Like. So much harder. A plant not suited to your local environment needs so much goddamn pampering. “Oh no! It’s too hot/cold! My soil is too acidic/not acidic enough! I need more/fewer nutrients! This watering schedule is desiccating/drowning me! Why is the air so humid/dry?????” Jesus. Christ. Let’s get back to our dog metaphor: Pick the right breed for the right lifestyle. If you live somewhere cold, it does not make sense to adopt a breed adapted for the heat. If you live in a tiny space, it does not make sense to adopt a “big” breed. If you aren’t super active or outdoorsy, it doesn’t make sense to adopt a high-energy breed that needs to run. 
Native creetchers need native plants: Remember your new local creetcher child you picked out? WELL. Fun fact: local creetchers like local plants best when it comes to deciding where to live. This is because, broadly speaking, most creetchers aren’t generalists (i.e., they can’t eat or build their home in just anything); they’re specialists. Meaning, they’ve coevolved with the local flora and fauna as part of a broader, intricate ecosystem that operates on complex checks and balances to sustain ecological homeostasis. OK, less technical: a lot of creetchers only eat, breed, and live in or on VERY specific plants. Extreme examples are things like monarch butterflies, which only lay their eggs on specific species of milkweed in North America, or koalas, which pretty much only eat eucalyptus leaves. But probably, there are half a dozen bugs, birds, reptiles, or whatever in your local area who depend on (or at least vastly prefer) plants from your local area as their direct/indirect food source or for their nesting/shelter site.
Bonus round: consider a keystone plant species: A keystone species is a plant or creetchur whose presence or absence in a particular ecosystem massively influences the health and success of that ecosystem. Oak trees as a genus are considered keystone plants because they foster an incredible diversity and density of life across bugs, birds, and small mammals all within their form. Keystones hold up the arches that keep ecological pathways stable and predictable, which makes them extra valuable in terms of “if you can only plant one (1) thing, plant THIS” decision making. There are also plants that might not rise to the level of “keystone” but which support a greater diversity of fauna than most others. You can look this up by searching “keystone plants of [state/country/ecoregion].” 
Bonus round: support your local endemic and/or endangered species: Plants native to your local area probably get overlooked by the plant nursery & landscaping trades because of colonialism they don't fit the "old reliable" standards of "acceptable" suburban landscape design, and so any plants that ONLY grow in your area (i.e., are endemic to that particular ecological niche) or are otherwise endangered can use all the love and support they can get. And this one is difficult, which is why it’s a bonus. Most locally endemic and/or endangered plants aren’t easy to come by and/or to get established. They require extra effort! These are your special needs puppers at the shelter; please consider giving them a loving home, but only if you’re prepared to put in the extra effort required. <3
OK, that all sounds great, but what you don’t seem to realize is that I [don’t have a yard / don’t have disposable income / am not able-bodied enough to garden / have zero practical experience with plants]
Fair enough, my friend. I hear you. But, there are many ways to go about getting a plant into some dirt, at multiple levels of complexity. Consider these options:
Find a local native plant enthusiast organization and get involved at whatever level you’re comfortable with: Most organizations formed to celebrate native flora operate largely on volunteer effort and will have various opportunities for different age/ability/skill levels. They’re also full of incredible nerds who know a lot about literally everything; this is PLANT FANDOM, y’all, and you will find lifetime friends and mentors (and occasional gatekeepy know-it-alls but whatever we live in a society etc.). Some of these orgs require official membership or fees to join, but those that do usually have participation opportunities for non-members. Maybe you’ll plant plants, or maybe you’ll help collect and process wild native seed, propagate native plants for small-scale trade and sale, organize educational events, produce literature and/or digital media to support the org and spread awareness, scout for community garden spaces the org can work in, keep tabs on local construction in wild spaces to organize native plant “rescues,” participate in citizen science projects like bioblitzes or bird counts to document local ecology, or help with organization administration! 
Or, find your local government’s natural resources department and get involved: Even if your local government writ large is hot garbage on environmental issues, probably there are some smaller departments full of Exhausted Optimists who are already bought in on the value of native flora & fauna and ecological preservation/restoration/conservation. And these folks are usually hungry for free help and will often have volunteer opportunities requiring little-to-no prior skill to improve, restore, or maintain public lands and nature preserves, or to help with citizen science projects that are backed by governmental grants. Search their sites using keywords like “conservation,” “habitat restoration,” “endangered/threatened species” and see what’s available (you might have to dig; these sites are always labyrinthian, and typically because responsibilities are fractured between multiple sub-departments).
Utilize any porch or patio space you have and plant in pots: Native plants can go in pots! And even just a couple of plants provide habitat/food/nursery space for buggies.
Ask friends or family who do have a yard/land if you can go ham in their space: Go full Mary Lennox within your (relatively) wealthier extended support system and ask, “Might I have a bit of earth?” like the precocious darling you are, and build your Secret Garden (healing generational trauma optional).
Look for any existing community gardens you can contribute to: Typically and traditionally, community gardens are organized around growing edible plants for harvest, but most of these will still want at least some flowering plants to attract pollinators for their fruits and veggies. However, you can also find community gardens built to showcase local flora, to support local pollinators, to provide habitat for special or endangered creetchers, or even just to provide beauty in the surrounding community. These programs will likely also have opportunities to find mentors or at least swap info with other, more-experienced gardeners.
See if your apartment/condo/school/office park will let you plant in their landscape areas: Success here will depend on whether the building complex is managed locally or via an off-site corporation, and what the existing contracts with landscaping companies paid to manage the green spaces look like. However, you can sometimes sweet talk management or admin into letting you take over a couple of beds (especially if it’s pitched as a “community garden”). Alternatively, you can go full powerpoint and see if you can convince the property manager to invest in landscaping with native plants. Probably, you can model your research/presentation off of existing proposals other eco-minded orgs in your area have used and published online; look around!
Fuuuuuck, fine. How do I find out more so I can get started?
Look for a local native plant or creetcher enthusiast organization: Save yourself the headache of figuring out where to start by just finding an existing community who’s going to have information and resources tailored to your area that you can leverage, lol. Literally put something like “native plant organization [your city/state/province/country]” into a search bar and see what you get (try “wildflower” too), or something like “naturalist groups [your city/state/province/country]” if you want to start from the creetchur level and work backward down to plants. The more specific/local the organization is to you, the better. Organizations like these are usually one-stop shops for research materials, links to local resources, seed and seedling swaps (for flora groups), creetcher watching events, mentorship & community support, and volunteer opportunities.
Dig into your local government’s natural resources, agricultural, or environmental department’s websites: Pretty much all governments have agricultural offices charged with providing information and support to farmers at a variety of scale, including tips and resources on how to garden in various regions, with even basic information aimed at hobbyists. But most will also have natural resources and environmental departments that will have resources on creating and managing habitat for native flora & fauna as part of conservation and environmental stewardship programs. There’s a wealth of dry as fuck but incredibly useful information out there that your taxes have already paid for; use it!
Determine what Level III Ecoregion you live in: A lot of native plant and creetcher research and plant databases use ecoregion names to help with categorization and/or organization of information. You want to know the level III ecoregion in particular, because it’s like the “just right” ecosystem size level for our purposes here. Search “level 3 ecoregions of [your country/state/province]” and you’ll probably be able to find a pretty map with the regions drawn out for you to pinpoint where you live and get the appropriate name. If you find your local government's agricultural or environmental office, they’ll probably have high-quality map image downloads and/or entire webpages with detailed info.
Search your local library system for books about plants and creetchers native to your area: There are SO many plant nerds out there, y’all, and they’ve written amazing books about their hyperfixation: field guides, regional tours, landscape & garden design, photography porn… This is where knowing your level III ecoregion name really comes in handy, because a lot of the really juicy books by the most interesting nerds are probably going to name drop the ecoregion in the title or subtitle. Bonus points if the publisher is part of a college/university or governmental department—SO nerdy, and so choice. I also like books because they usually have a lot of extra fun/weird info in them about how best to support specific plants and creetchers that doesn’t always end up in online databases. Also, the photographs and/or hand-drawn botanical illustrations are charming. AND, you can sometimes find amazingly specific books like “native plants for attracting [your blorbo creetcher]”!
Find and search online native plant or wildflower databases: This is the quickest and most efficient way to look up plants, especially if you want to narrow your search beyond just ecoregion by additional growing parameters like sunlight and water requirements, whether the plant has food/medicinal/production properties, bloom season and color, whether the plant is considered a good pollinator, and sometimes insane but useful shit like “are the goddamn deer going to eat it?” If you’re going to build a personal spreadsheet/wishlist of plants to look for, copy-pasting from a database search is a great start. However, be aware that these databases will have incomplete or slightly incorrect information for how a particular plant grows or performs in your specific area (i.e., there are plenty of “native” plants that have a broad range spanning multiple ecoregions, but they might look/act/need differently in one region per another, and it’s a crapshoot what info has been entered into the database). 
Snoop around on social media sites like Reddit, YouTube, Facebook Groups, etc.: There is a LOT of information within informal online communities. Armed with some basic info like your ecoregion, a specific plant or creetcher name, and whatever specific question you need answered, you can find hyper-specific information pretty quick. Most government departments and native plant/naturalist organizations will have presences on one or more of these sites that you can follow as well.
Get comfortable using scientific names for plants and creetchers: Knowing the common name for a plant or creetcher is fine until you're trying to research it or find where you can get your hands on the right seeds/seedlings, and then you realize there are like a bajillion different plants known colloquially as a "buttercup" and they're all wildly different species. Scientific names are a plant or creetcher's genus & species designation (plus sometimes subspecies), will be vaguely latin or Greek looking, written in italics, and always have the genus name capitalized but the species name not (even when the species name is a proper noun). So like Ranunculus bulbosus is the scientific name of the bulbous buttercup native to Western Europe, and Oenothera speciosa is the scientific name of the colloquially called "buttercup" of the central United States (but more commonly known as pink evening primrose, or showy evening primrose, or pinkladies, or... you get the idea). Look for the scientific name first and foremost to make sure you end up with the plant you really mean.
If you made it this far, you’re a champ. Hopefully you are inspired to put a goddamn plant in some goddamn earth and beat back that existential despair like a PRO.
I might make another post with specific resources/links for the United States, since that's what I'm most familiar with, and link it to this post. If people have good resource tips for other countries, I can collate those to add as well! :3
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little-big · 5 months
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Best way to start a Friday is in the garden!
Got up early-ish, made sure F was fed and dressed and headed out to water the garden. This also means ad hoc weeding, checking plants on how they’re growing and making note of any pests or issues and just vibing with the garden in general. The ground was dewy so my feet got wet plus when watering there’s always water splashing everywhere. Everything is looking awesome, I have grand plans, and hopefully we get a good harvest this year.
Shout out to these sweet peas - I planted them in the autumn / winter of 2022 (so 18+ months ago), they didn’t die, they’ve just continued to grow - though not bloom - the entire time. I recently pruned them back and they’ve put on a bunch of new growth. Downside is they’re unscented but they sure look pretty.
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panic-sl0th · 9 months
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I'm not usually a fan of yellow but this year I kinda love it (tiny cucumber flower)
My biggest lesson this year was that these were vine cucumbers and not bush ones like I originally thought so next year I'll have trellises and stuff ready to go for them but hey 1st year garden over here 😂
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dead-n-cide · 10 months
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Wishing everyone a berry good day!
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moonhedgegarden · 7 months
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Send your butterflies to my inbox🦋
+1 if you decorate it
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madb0nes · 2 months
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castoff fanart marathon
1. fav character
2. vector time 1/2
3. vector time 2/2
4. au or headcanon
5. arianna time 1/2
6. arianna time 2/2
7. fan oc
8. frankie time 1/2
9. frankie time 2/2
11. marina time 1/2
14. rori time 1/2
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