What are your odd garden loves?

I love the smell of fresh bulbs and wet dirt. Odd I know. But to me, when I get shipped a batch of fresh bulbs from an online nursery like Van Engelen, they smell like heaven to me.
I also love the smell of wet dirt. It's like walking through the forest after a spring rain.
What are your "odd gardening loves"?

Seeing how many different insects and spiders I can attract! Except Japanese beetles and the destructive like of course!! Last year in my lemon grass/fountain grass mix I had tons of grasshoppers to show to my son. We also have those big tunneling spiders! We fed them MANY a Japanese beetle!

Ibuprofin and heating pads

Large beautifully constructed spider webs. Lou

Oh, gosh... there are so many things, I have a disease (anosmia) that is the loss of sense of smell, so really pungent things awaken it a bit.

Wet compost and fresh mulch... and I can actually smell a few flowers like moonflowers and a few oriental bulbs.

I like to put moss on bare spots, in the rock garden and other places. Better than bare soil and looks more natural than mulch when I don't have something growing there that needs mulch.

A garden is a little like C.S. Lewis' Narnia - the looking glass you step through can be your back door, and, presto, you are in another country, another when.

Organized chaos!.........I love the bits and pieces(the plant material), that can be fit together like a puzzle............nothing stays the same for long! Elaine

Masses and masses of flowers, like a huge heap of flower salad, colors and scents all crowded together, a feast for the eyes and nose! I do admire those folks who have nice neat formal gardens, with soldierly rows of plants toeing the line, but give me that cottage garden look and I'm a happy camper! I love the surprise volunteers that seed themselves and pop up with a splash of color and once I even nurtured a giant mullein that grew to six feet tall simply because he was such a handsome fella!

I love discovering all the little odd mushrooms that grow everywhere in you yard. Even though I know they're a bad thing, I can't help but be fascinated by how many different sizes and shapes they can grow in!

mvespa - I have the same olfactory love as yours, wet dirt. I think it's so funny that you put it that way too. Shouldn't it be mud?? LOL No, not the same!

I too, love to find a big spider web, especially when it's still wet with dew. If I get up too late and miss it, the super-fine setting on the sprayer does the job!

Spiderwebs are beautiful but my favorite is to turn up a shovel of soil and watch the earth worms squiggle back into it. They are such amazing creatures!

EWWWWWWWW - they totally creep me out! I'm worse than a teenager when I see one! And of course they are HUGE right now - icky poo! (But they're a very good thing, right?)

Grossed out by the humble earth worm! It never occured to me they were anything but a marvel! They pass through the earth and enrich it as they go. I always feel that if I turn a spade and there is no worm there then I need to add humus fast! They are a gardeners best friend!

Well, maybe there's hope for my lawn and garden, then, because I have tons of them this year. Raking leaves certainly turned them up - them and the mushrooms!

I suppose earthworms are good in the garden, but I really hate them in the lawn. My back yard is so lumpy you could just about break an ankle.

Darius:
It's time you came to my we place, and I'd put a couple of my roses ... only near you , and you would smell them.
Even SWMBO, sitting in her we workshop can smell them, and there are only 4 blooming at the moment, ok, she can smell ANYTHING from 50 yards, be it a flower, or ME :-( ... lol

Zany:
The poor wee worm, he's just fixed his route to the surface when it rains, and you come along and destroy his days work, and think, "Ooooohhhh ... great madjik eh? ... wee wurrums", ok, you wouldn't say it like that, (that was Glasgow dialect), but on the other hand, (not the hand holding the wurrums), it is a lovely sight when you turn something over which you thought was dead for weeks, and there they were ... err .. I'd better not say any more for fear of banning ;-)


Gruesomemoor

LOL Gruesomemoor, I said earth worms not maggots!

Oh, oh well ... are they no' wurrums as well?? ... they always seem to be under somethin' :-p


Wundrinmoor

Dearest Goofmoor, if your cornfusin maggots and earth worms then please for the sake of all concerned, do not offer your produce to food for the hungry! :~P

I do not want to touch them, but I like to look at little colorful lizards and mud puppies.

mud puppies?

I know they can be distructive but I love chipmunks,, they are so cute when they stuff thier little faces full of of corn we leave out for the birds and squirrels...

i love tilled dirt-the smell the look!! I could have just a spot of tilled dirt NO plants!! weird i know!

Ibuprofen and heating pads - LOL! That was me after yesterday. I spent 8AM - 4PM digging and planting and digging and planting! What a backbreaker of a day, and I didn't even get everything in!
I love earthworms too (earth wurrums?), I used to be grossed out by them, but now that I know how wonderful they are for the garden, I love them! If I find one that is on a pavement or drowning, I try to save it!

Moby - no wet dirt is definately not the same as MUD! LOL.
Spiderwebs - how could I forget how pretty they are, but I always end up walking through one I didn't see - I can't stand that, since I am spooked out by spiders.

I also like the smell of heucheras (coral bells) and lantana, when a stem or leaf is broken off.

I am a big fan of olefactory stimulation. Always looking for those fragrances in the garden as well as visual beauty and stimulation.

Ok, since the earthworms are back in topic - I have yet another dumb question. Can you move them? I'm starting a raised bed and I'm wondering if I can move them from the lawn to the garden?

lol as long as they have dirt, they're happy campers. I'll admit to moving some off the driveway, back to the lawn, after a big rain and before the sun dries them out!

Sure you can move them! They will make those new raised beds their home and improve them for you at the same time!

Sequee, be sure to wrap the tiny little tea cups and plates carefully when you move them earthworms. LOL! I'm so bad! Love those earthworms. They are always thick in the compost and leaf piles.

I love the sound of hummingbird wings as they whiz by... also the clicking whooosh of the ravens in flight. The eagles sometimes cast a shadow as they pass by overhead. I also enjoy the little plants that just come up where they like, and it's always more artful than my arrangements.

I love to watch the little toads suddenly jumping ahead from my threatening foot, whenever I can I pick it up to look over very carefully than putting it back as it happily disappears
Maria

Aria, I miss toads! We don't seem to have them here.