Wildflower Spiral
The goal of our Wildflower Spiral Project is to attract pollinators, create an environment for observing nature and pollinators up close, and to create a sacred space for emotional, spiritual and physical healing through meditation, contemplation and medicinal plants.
The Big Idea
In August 2021, I was meditating by our old pre-Civil war oak tree (The Old Woman of the Woods) and had a picture flash into my mind. We have a big patch of crown beard that was inaccessible. In this vision, I saw a spiral cut into the crown beard patch with a wood chip path and a sitting area in the center. I shared the idea with Dave and he loved it.
The Creation Process
We immediately roped off a spiral path and then he spent a few days mowing a spiral into the crown beard. We’ve been wanting a labyrinth and even tried to make one without success. It’s much more difficult to get plants to grow in a spiral or labyrinth than to cut a path through existing wildflowers.
After Dave cut the path, we laid cardboard on the path as a weed barrier. Then, we put down wood chips (which we obtained for free from a local tree service). Each day I worked an hour on the spiral and it was a fun manifesting project to accumulate each day’s supply of cardboard! We visited friends and met some really cool people in our daily quests for cardboard! Because Dave had other important projects on the property to tend to, he had less time to help me during the first 7 days of the project, but during the last 7-8 days, he was out there working alongside me each day. The work went a lot faster with him breaking down boxes, pulling tape off the cardboard and bringing me wheelbarrows of wood chips. With his help, we finished the project in 15 days instead of the 30 days we originally estimated had I done it on my own.
I documented our progress on our Facebook page. We completed the Wildflower Spiral Project on Day 15 – September 9th. That evening I sat down in the center of the spiral, and a hummingbird hovered not a foot in front of my face looking at me. Then a dragonfly landed on my arm and stayed for about 30-40 seconds. So cool!
The Pollinators Are Coming
We’ve also seen monarchs and other assortments of butterflies. We have lots of bumble bees, various types of dragonflies and crickets. We’ve also seen an increasing number of honey bees in the fall.
For a recap of the project and what we learned from this experience, please watch the video below.
What’s Next?
We’re planting more wildflowers into the spiral to diversify, add more color, and include more medicinal quality herbs and plants. We’ve been taking seed heads from other wildflowers around our property and planting them amidst the crownbeard. We also already have some ironweed, bull thistle, and quite a bit of goldenrod. I’m specifically looking to incorporate flowers, plants and herbs with medicinal qualities so that the Wildflower Spiral serves not only as a meditative, pollinator friendly feature, but also a natural remedy collection.
Note: Our Wildflower Spiral has been accepted as one of the 201 LDS Earth Stewardship Projects.
#LDSEarthStewardship #LetsDoService