FIELD NOTE 005 | After Ten Years, My Garden is Still Surprising Me

The plastic plant label told me the mature height, the bloom color, the hardiness zone, and whether it preferred full sun or dry vs wet soil.

The label told me what the plant would become, given the conditions that it required. About this high, this wide, and this color.

It doesn’t mention anything about the life cycles it helps foster or the species of lepidoptera it supports. It didn’t mention the birds that choose to perch atop the flower to pick out seeds one by one. It doesn’t mention the winter texture it provides when the garden is blanketed in snow. It never told me what I would become as the gardener tending to these plants. These don’t fit on a label.

The plant label for a Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia) never could have told me this: One summer afternoon, I’d find myself standing barefoot by the laundry room deck, holding my breath…