u/Formal-Ad-7184

Stay triggered. No, I don't care what you think of my ineffective, knee-high, half-rotted decorative fence that is over 30 years old.

My HOA is seething rn.

Looking to appeal to native plant gardeners. Please let me know what you think.

I remember a few years ago, this guy I knew drew a diagram much like this one to show how Walt Disney and Tyson Foods were both owned by the same people. Of course, I didn't believe him, I thought to myself, "Oh great another /r/NativePlantConspiracy nut." Man, I was so wrong. I wish I had believed him back then. I had no idea about the true history of this ecoregion, who really controls everything, why our lawns happened, and how they weed-and-feed us. I will never forget when I watched a video of Joe Santore's bit about how modern landscaping is really just dumbing us down so we can't revolt against them, and I thought, "Oooohhhh...now it makes sense..." I will never forget when my history teacher told us about why we REALLY mowed a massive lawn that happened a hundred years ago (economics) and I lost all respect I had for Scotts Miracle-Gro. I will never forget when I actually looked at a good picture of the damage of the Everglades and yelled "Oh come on, that looks like it was hit by Walt Disney Imagineers!" out loud. I feel a lot like a kid who finally figured out that Doug Tallamy and Robin Wall Kimmerer aren't real. I can't believe I actually believed all the bullshit and didn't see through it. Just blindly believed what they told us. Didn't try to question it. I finally realized after all those years, how the world really is. Now I know. We called them "Native Plant Gardeners." We laughed at them. We rolled our eyes at them. We even ostracized them. And you know what? They were right.

No Steve, I won't be mowing today.

I was just minding my business in the garden one day. It was a normal day like any other. I was looking at the blooms of my passionflower but I wasn't really looking at the blooms was I? I was looking at the carpenter bees, specialist pollinators of the passionflower. You see, the anthers are shaped in just a way to squeegee the pollen onto the carpenter bee's back when they go in for the nectar. It's a curious thing to think about flowers when you are looking at them. They are useless on their own and the insects need to be attracted to them to have any function. Humans enjoy the colors but plants really can't do shit by themselves. I wouldn't even plant them if they didn't produce something for me. It's the fruit or the flower. But the insects are connected to them in such a way that neither would exist without the other. But I am here that needs neither.

I am an independent person naturally so, why have I need of these codependent leeches of the botanical world? The carpenter bees, in the spring, slash holes in the side of my blueberry flowers. This reduces fruit set and gives honey bees a way to steal nectar from the bell shaped Ericaceae flowers that normally, only buzz pollinators, like the southern blueberry bee, or long tonged pollinators can access. So my passionflowers are tangentially contributing to a reduced fruit set in my blueberries.

This feels like I am in a toxic relationship with these plants. They all just take from me and give nothing back...it doesn't feel like an equal exchange. It doesn't feel like the plants even acknowledge my presence when I am amongst them. Like I am an invisible gardener who passes through the garden, unseen.

Why do I have such sadness today, staring at my passionflower? Is it simply over? How do I tell a plant, with no ears or ability to comprehend any type of communication that I don't feel like we are compatible with each other? Do I simply dig it up and compost it? Should I just bury myself and let the soil reduce myself to exudates for the plants? I don't feel like I have any more value than to be dragged along to the nursery to find more native plants to throw into the ground like a programmed native gardening bot at the whims of literature instructing me on what to do.

I don't know if I have the strength to pick up the shovel again. To plant another native plant, or to even dig that hole to compost myself.

Peace be with you.

What is this and how do I get rid of it? Tree was cut, (might be using stump as food) fake turf put over it, white mycelium grew and it’s just getting bigger.

Y'all think they will have crazy captive monarch rearers since Vice City is based on Miami, FL?

The "kinda looks like giant chanterelles from a distance in the 105F heat index" fun guy has a bullseye-like pattern on it. Never seen them before and in abundance in the same area as the chanterelles.