Roxanne Sterling-Astor

You might be a permie (YMBAP) if... you can't go anywhere without collecting weed/wild seeds or cuttings.. anywhere from cracks in sidewalks to a busy freeway off ramp.
I sing a song about it, to the tune of I'm a girl watcher... If you know it, sing along 🎶 🎵 I'm a weed watcher, I'm a weed watcher... watching weeds go by , *sigh* my oh my. My friends know at any moment I might ask to pull over!
YMBAP if ...you wear pruners all the time, and if you get dressed up they still are living in your antique lovingly refurbished Coach bag.
YMBAP if... you see a willow tree you immediately think of making rooting hormones
YMBAP if.. you never imagine building a board fence
YMBAP if.. waiting 5y for something to produce at full potential seems fast
This is a fun one.. keep it up!

Pam,
I am currently looking to buy in S Illinois. I would love to meet you when I come to look at properties. I will contact you by email as you mentioned. I have extensive kitchen garden knowledge, studied with Sepp Holzer years ago, lots of nursery work.  It would be great to get to know some permie folk in a new state.
Roxanne Sterling-Astor
askwildehilde@gmail.com

I can't seem to get lettuces reliably.. they always bolt. Cabbage and broccoli evaded me until I began planting in fall. We get snow but not deep. They both seem to like sitting in hibernation. I was able to harvest mid-May.

How is your project coming along? I love that area, and am looking for community.

I am just getting back into it for cyanotype creations. Cyanotype (ifyoudon'tknow) is an old-school photography methodology.  I use it on fabric at the moment. Most people know it from its use to make building blueprints. You lay out drawings, flowers, over treated fabric or paper and develop the image by placing it in the sun.I am just using an old set of encyclopedias from the 70s to press the flowers. I'm not too worried about the books because they're a terrible set of gardening books with terrible printing and constant mention of chemical/pesticide solutions. I say pressing flowers is best use. These are my first attempts. Having pressed flowers will make much better prints than these fresh leaves pressed with glass against the fabric during development.  I will be able to keep especially nice specimens for re use. The other little ones were just a quick squiggle to test timing in the sun and the opacity of a sharpie on a plastic sheet. My next run I will combine the two ideas, but this time I will try paint on transparent film. I am also thinking of pressed flowers in wax paper. I want to try cutting out shapes from those wax paper pressings... see if a silhouette shows up. I'm in the super excited stage of this, new for me medium!!

My name is Roxanne..62y omni creative woman. Gemini 🌞 Leo 🌅 Aries🌙 Interested in meeting someone comfortable with an artistic creative down to earth life... cause that's my vibe. I won't know a single person when I move there. I found a few places in Southern Illinois that are very peaceful with plenty of delicious garden space. I am moving there to the garden and fix an old house. I'm a seed collector and propagation junkie. Professional cook and restaurant veteran. As far as romance.. I would love to meet someone my ageish. Independent, friendly, good sense of humor, and interested in some of the same stuff I am.
It would be nice to have new friends in general.. feel free to give any S. Illinois advice you might have. I am all ears. Give me time to respond too.. I am hyper distracted selling my old house.
[youtube]https://youtube.com/shorts/i1nifqNFNtQ?si=b-CwAyit9qGsBeEP[/youtube]
Older video for fun

Cheers..Roxanne




re my edits;
New Jersey didn't work out. My sister got sick as soon as I moved there, she passed. I drove across the country twice last year, and will be doing it again when I come to Illinois with all my stuff and my big crazy dog.

My mind went immediately to my paper mache projects. The sculptures are difficult to store because of molds that can take hold. Honey!!! In the slurry & in the paints. New experiment starting over here. I'm totally embracing this, I'll show results.
Thanks,
Roxanne

If there is a hummingbird thread with info on successive blooming suggestions to keep hummingbirds fed naturally, point me there.
While I am here tho; does anyone have suggestions for a perennial that will bloom in  July August that will provide nectar for hummingbirds.
I live in Southern Oregon with some snowy winters. I have deer, so deer resistant would be great. I have a trumpet vine ready to plant it has been getting trimmed by deer since it's not had a tall place to climb up just yet. I do have high hopes for that.
Love to hear what you suggest.. As for annuals,  we can't plant out till June here and I have limited sun till May, conversely my sun cuts out mid Sept.  Hot dry half sun all summer.
Cheers,
Roxanne

Datura!!!
I  lived in an old house with a massive Datura.. one of the rooms had blooms coming up to the second story. Every single person who had that room went crazy having started out as pleasant quite normal.. truly went mad.. hallucinations violent outbursts etc. A friend from Shri Lanka said after meeting the current tenant of the room, saw the Datura out his window .. told me immediately "you have to cut that thing down don't you know they are toxic?" "I think he's already sick"
Honestly it all clicked in that moment.. the landlord was really crazy too.. It came down that week. An antidote, but it convinced me for life.

Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins anyone?
I have longed to smell that after reading that book. 😅