Butterfly Gardens
This story is from our Stories from the Frontlines of Clutter series where we take you behind the scenes on a typical day at Life Easier. Click here to read more.
In the wake of my divorce, I bristle rather strongly to judgment. I am my own worst critic and I’m happy to observe ways to be better, but I get very frustrated with people these days who reach into my or my mom’s life when they themselves are not perfect. Same goes for some of my hoarding disorder clients whose families simply chalk them up as lazy.
So when my 81 year old mom set up and began managing not one, but two butterfly gardens ? by herself – one at her church and one at her local neighborhood park – got criticized heavily at her church for not doing a better job of keeping the butterfly garden up.
The summers are hot and in the heat her blood pressure drops. She goes out at 6 pm and works until 10 pm at night. Some days she goes out at 6 am and comes in at 10 am. Unfortunately In three years since their planting, no one has volunteered to help her maintain the gardens.
She applied and was awarded a $1200 grant from MSU. She has spent at least $1000 of her own money on soil, plants, seeds, and compost. Georgia has tied her garden to the preschool at the church teaching one class every three weeks to the kids about bugs, butterflies, gardening, etc. Three new families joined the preschool because they were so impressed that a butterfly garden was part of the educational experience. A butterfly garden (or any garden takes years to develop). As of last week, she finally got two church members to step forward and help her.
Thus when I arrived on September 1st and saw the state of the Pumphouse Park garden in her neighborhood I knew what was coming. No one volunteers to help her despite her being on the HOA board and her asking, but they will criticize for sure. Nevermind she’s 81 and living with ovarian cancer.
For three days, we have worked on it while balancing her meds, blood pressure and eating schedule. We have a bit of work left when I come back in October, but I think it looks a whole lot better. 10 new plants, 12 bags of mulch, 5 bags of soil, and 2 very sore backs. We did it though. She was very upset with herself when we started (almost crying when she walked around the garden) and she was smiling tonight when we finally threw in the towel.
No one criticizes my mama. ?
