Maybe this isn’t a very interesting post, lol, but it’s what I’m doing today. It’s yard-work day. All week is supposed to be rain-free, so the whole week is outdoor work-week. With all the rains we’ve had, the grass is growing fast. Mostly weeds, but some grass, too. We have very little flat ground and too many rocks for mowing with a riding mower. There is a little area that I could use a push mower, but that mower is broken. So it’s all weed-eating work for now. We have two weedeaters. One with string and another with a blade.

Thankfully, I’m getting around to this chore before I need the blade anywhere near the house. I do need the blade along the fence lines already in the horse’s pasture, though.

Nursery Work

Yesterday and the day before was Ginseng Nursery work days. The seedlings are coming in good now and I had someone come over on Sunday to help with potting. That’s a tremendous help, especially when the person doing it has a gentle touch with the fragile seedlings. Did you know that Wild Ozark is the only certified ginseng nursery in Arkansas?

It’s a very small operation, but it gives anyone within driving distance a place to come pick up seedlings of ginseng and some of the other companion plants that I propagate here at the nursery. The nursery is also a habitat garden, so those interested can come see the ginseng growing in a natural setting with the habitat companions. And they also get to see some of the most common look-alikes right there where they can also see the ginseng.

Yard Work Exhaustion

When I’m busy doing the garden and yard work, I don’t have time (or energy) to make art. But I do get a lot of inspiration, especially while working in the habitat garden. I painted a ginseng plant the other day. Just a quick sketch, and one day I’ll do a better one. I want to do a series of the woodland plants including ginseng and the plants that live in that same habitat.

Wild ginger is on that list. I got some good pictures of that plant while it was blooming the other day.

And the Showy orchid is probably blooming right now, too. I need to go on a little hike to take a look at it. That plant is hard to find out here, but I know where one little colony has set up house in a spot not too hard to reach. I’ll add a photo here if I get out there today and it is still blooming, or even still there.

So, I’d like to add the orchids of Wild Ozark to that list of plants I will paint. I’ve already painted the Showy. We have several native orchids here, though I haven’t found many of the others recently. I think today would be a good day, now that I’ve worn myself out with weed-eating and yard-work, to go see what the orchids I do know where to find out here have been doing.

ABOUT
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Madison Woods is the pen-name for my creative works. I’m a self-taught artist who moved to the Ozarks from south Louisiana in 2005. My paintings of Ozark-inspired scenes feature lightfast pigments from Madison county, Arkansas. My inspiration is nature – the beauty, and the inherent cycle of life and death, destruction, regeneration, and transformation.

Roxann Riedel is my real name. I’m also salesperson for Montgomery Whiteley Realty. If you’re interested in buying or selling in Madison or Carroll county, AR, let me know! You can see the properties that I blog about at WildOzarkLand.com.

Wild Ozark is also the only licensed ginseng nursery in Arkansas. Here’s the link for more information on the nursery

P.S.

There’s always a discount for paintings on the easel 😉

Here’s my Online Portfolio

And, Click here to join my mailing list.

Contact Mad Rox: (479) 409-3429 or madison@madisonwoods and let me know which hat I need to put on 🙂 Madison for art, Roxann for real estate, lol. Or call me Mad Rox and have them both covered!

https://www.youtube.com/@wildozark