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Miss Margaret? My superhero when it comes to the outside world,
because I like being a nature freak like you.
Speaker 2: I can hear it in your voice. Barah, you're into this,
the whole wild.
Speaker 1: World, Margaret. If you knew where I was right now,
I'm in the center of a state forest and we
just endured twenty five degrees last night. The pipes are frozen,
and you're sitting there going I love nature, I love
how it bites me and we still grow forward and
you've got to be the same way.
Speaker 2: Well, it was seventeen. Here last night we're ready to spring,
but it is still February. So this is how it's
supposed to go.
Speaker 1: Well, you really ignited me with the wheedy garden because
one of the things that you that you really do
cover in this is that you know the pesky hungry squirrel.
Do you know where do they know where to go
to plant their acorns? And just recently I found out
where it is. They want the softest ground possible. They
don't want to dig. What have you found?
Speaker 2: Well, that's why there's if you look closely at that
page in the wheaedy Garden, the acorn this squirrel hid
in the soil last fall has actually turned into a
baby oak tree in the picture. So yes, they do
plant those acorns in the garden because the garden has
soft turn into soil in it, unlike the heart ground
of the yard.
Speaker 1: See, I won't get rid of those those little seedlings
of the acorns. Them grow in my forest because I
have one in South Charlott of forest, and I allow
that to happen because it's nature doing what nature does.
And who am I to go in there and interrupt nature.
Speaker 2: Well it's a good point, and really nature is going
to be busy interrupting itself anyway, because if you get
here or you have chipmunks, somebody is going to go
in there and eat most of those oak seedlings anyway.
So it's the rare acorn that turns into a mighty oak.
But that's what acorns are for, there to feed our
wild neighbors.
Speaker 1: I'm glad that you think like that, because I've got
wild grapes by the lake here, and the thing is
is that I don't go out there to pick those grapes.
What we do is we allow them to be there
for the migratory birds that are going to be coming
down and they need that fuel to get to other
areas of the planet.
Speaker 2: That's exactly right. That's why I don't pick my deadhead.
Gardeners call it dead heading when you pick the spent
ballooms off so that the plant will make new ballooms.
I let those ballooms go to seeds, as the migratory
birds need those seeds on their way south for the winter.
Speaker 1: So now, how do you handle a wheaty garden? Because
my father did not like a wheedy garden up there
in Montana, and we would spend every weekend weeding the garden,
and I'm going, please, this has got to be natural, man.
Let the weeds grow.
Speaker 2: Well. Some of the weeds you do want to grow,
but there are other weeds that it's best to pull out.
There are, among us invasive species like chickweed and creeping
Charlie right that if you don't pull out, it will
it will choke out the flowers. But when I talk
about a wheaedy garden, I'm talking really about a wildflower garden.
Speaker 1: Nice.
Speaker 2: So many of our wildflowers were considered by our ancestors
to be nuisance plants that the words the common names
often have weed built right into the name. So you
talk about milkweed, for example, But milkweed is the sole
plant that a monarch butterfly can lay her eggs on.
So if you don't have milk weed, you won't have milk,
you won't have monarch caterpillars, and you won't have the
next generation of monarch butterflies. So the weeds in the
weedy garden aren't true weeds. They're wildflowers that others think
of as weeds, but that if we cultivate, or often
they just show up on their own, they are the
seeds are brought in on the backs of wild animals,
are in the bellies of birds, and if we let
them grow, then we are going to have even more
wild creatures to share our ecosystems with.
Speaker 1: Please do not move. There's more with Margaret coming up next.
The name of the book, and I'm telling you inside
my heart because I've experienced the book. It is for
all ages, but it is geared toward the younger people.
The weedy garden. I always want to write a love
song when people start knocking down what you know, the
Queensland lace, because I think Queensland lace is a beautiful,
beautiful flower, and people go, it's a weed. Go rid
of the weed, and I'm going to that's a beautiful flower.
Fall in love with it.
Speaker 2: It's the way we are taught to manage our gardens
is very destructive. If we see a hole in a leaf,
we think pest yes. But in truth, if we see
a hole in a leaf, it means that a butterfly
or a moth has laid its eggs on that leaf,
and it means we're doing something right. It means that
we've allowed the right flowers to grow. Because if you
don't have caterpillars, then the mama birds won't have anything
to feed their babies. So it's a very inconnected Yes,
it's a very interconnected world, and we have forgotten that.
But I'll tell you what children have not forgotten it.
If you have a three year old, or a four
year old or a five year old, handy, watch what
they do when they walk out into the wild world.
They will immediately squat to get a closer look. See.
Speaker 1: And that's what I love about this Yeah, that's exactly
the reason why I love this book is because you're
going after the right age group, and at the same time,
it's also entertaining people like myself because now we have
someone we can talk with and grow with. When you
plant an idea like that to a younger reader, you.
Speaker 2: Know, I think that that is true. But I also
think that in some ways we can take our lead
from those children. We don't need to teach them that,
we just need to let them be themselves. Children are
automatically interested and they can show us the way. They
can show us what we've forgotten as adults.
Speaker 1: Wow, seven minutes with you is not enough. Where can
people go to get more information about you? This book
and everything that you've dedicated your life to because you're
really all about growing forward.
Speaker 2: Well, I have a website, Margaret Wrinkle dot com, but
you don't need to know very much about me to
appreciate the Weedy Garden. I think it's really for children,
with a little bit of extra information in the back
for the grown ups in their lives. And the book
is out today, so it's available anywhere you like to
get books.
Speaker 1: And the illustration is absolutely phenomenal. We didn't even get
to touch on that, but I really think that we
should honor that person too, which I believe is a
relative of yours.
Speaker 2: Is it not. It is the artist who made these lavish, extravagant,
beautifully colorful artworks is my baby brother. I knew it.
Speaker 1: God Man, please come back to this show. The door
is always going to be open for you.
Speaker 2: Have me anytime. I really enjoyed talking with you.
Speaker 1: You'd be brilliant today. Okay, and keep loving those plants.
Thank you.
Speaker 2: Eric.