Once the garden started growing, there was no stopping it.

I was very excited. This was my first attempt at being a Flower Farmer and I did not know what to expect. These Feral Flowers were grown specifically to be cut and available for purchase at my friend Janessa’s Forget Me Knodt flower shop. All proceeds are going to the care for colony cats. This project is also a great way to raise awareness of colony cats and Trap-Neuter-Return, TNR, the humane way to control their population.

I also wanted to show that you can have a beautiful yard and garden with cats in it. In fact, I think the cats make it even more beautiful.

First the perennial plants came back with a flourish. It’s as if they were also celebrating the end of winter as much as I was.

The hostas in the front yard were HUGE.

And there was lots of yellows and purples.

We planted annual cutting flower seeds for the Feral Flowers project. The first seeds to grow were the sunflowers, especially this lemon yellow variety.

Not to be outdone, the other flowers started growing.

And growing.

There was cosmos, forget me nots, larkspur, snapdragons, dill, basil, catmint, magnolias, and zinnias.

Lots and lot of zinnias.

Zillions of zinnias.

This was my favorite view all summer.

This was Dash’s favorite view.

It was fun to see the cats in my yard enjoying the garden. After all, this is THEIR yard. Bouncy Bear really likes to sit on this round table.

Funny Face prefers the shade.

Dice likes to hang out on the stepping stones. And Mooha is chief gardener.

Mooha is my indoor cat, but she comes out with me while I’m in the garden.

She loves chasing bugs, and you can usually find her on the “hunt” right by the catmint.

Or hanging out on the cat path in-between the flowers.

Once I planted the Feral Flowers Garden it was time to hurry up and wait.

The perennial plants around the Feral Villa were already growing strong.

The cutting flowers garden is all organic and planted straight in the ground from seed. All it took was lots of spring rain, careful weeding and transplanting, and time. So much time that I was pretty impatient.

The colony cats were enjoying the new spring weather and the bare garden didn’t seem to faze them at all.  And then, finally, you could see little plants.

Amaranth!

Zinnias!

Sunflowers!

And more!

A LOT more.

The Feral Flowers Garden was well on its way to success.

Blogging in my garden today is pure bliss. I’d like to share the Feral Flowers Project from the beginning.

Summer is my favorite season, especially since we converted the backyard into a full garden. Every year I like to change it up and experiment. You can see the different garden configurations we’ve tried on my Flickr page.

This past winter was brutal. B-R-U-T-A-L. The polar vortex gave me the worst case of seasonal depression. I worried about the outdoor cats all of the time, despite the heating pads we installed in their outdoor shelters.

Spring was also slow to start, and some of the colony cats were showing up sick. The vet bills were racking up.

During this dark time, I started planning my garden to cheer myself up. And decided to focus on flowers this year. My friend Janessa owns her own flower shop in Uptown called Forget Me Knodt, and we talked about cutting flower gardens. Somewhere in that conversation, we agreed to plant a garden here, and sell the flowers at her shop to help raise money and awareness for the colony cats.

The Feral Flowers Project was born. And has been growing ever since.

We had to wait until almost June, but as soon as we could, we bought cutting flower seeds.

It was clear from the very beginning that my cat Mooha was in charge. Which makes sense. She was born in my co-worker’s flower pot in 1999, and has been with me ever since.

Time to start planting!

So we did.

This is what the garden looked like when I prepped it in June.

JUNE.

No wonder I was depressed.

Anyways, Janessa started digging.

And dug some more.

I helped.

And Mooha helped.

What’s with all of the sticks?

To start plotting out the garden of course.

This is what it looked like on paper.

Ok, so Mooha doesn’t want you to see it. Let’s take a closer look. Ok, forget it.

Anyways, put down the sticks.

And some more.

Mooha inspects the whole thing.

And here’s what it looked from my deck like all planned out.

We planted all of the seeds, including these awesome Chinese Forget Me Not seeds.

I have no idea what makes them “Chinese.”

Mooha didn’t help us plant seeds at all. She found the tiny bit of catmint growing out of the ground, and decided she was in love with the garden hose. Like, REALLY in love.

After we finished messing with their yard, the colony cats came to take a look.

Dash was first.

Janessa and I celebrated with cocktails, and have been watching the garden grow all summer.

To be continued…

Ever since the cat owners of the hoarder/drug house moved out at the end of June and dumped a bunch of cats outside I’ve been seeing the cats around the neighborhood. But it’s hard to keep track – some stayed near that house, and others roamed to find other feeders in our neighborhood.

I’m hoping some of those cats will find the cat cafe I’ve had set up in my front yard since last fall. Funny Face is absolutely obsessed with it.

Last week I started putting the food in a Tru-Catch trap zip-tied open to acclimate the cats to the trap. When I came home from my trip to Amsterdam last night, I decided to give it a shot. I took off the zip-ties and put the trap in the same position using the same dry food as I normally do to feed the cats, nothing different or fancy to avoid making them suspicious.

Funny Face came out again and again to look at it, as if he was warning the other cats to stay away. Either that, or he just really wanted the food, but knew better than to go in the trap again. And then it rained really hard for awhile. I was thinking my plan wouldn’t work at all.

I set my alarm and checked the trap throughout the night anyways.

At 7am there was finally a cat in a trap. He acted like a typical feral cat: growling and refusing to look at me. I took a few photos of him and started getting ready to take him to the clinic for his TNR treatment, until I looked a little more closely at the photos. And then I went out to look at him more closely again. And again. I was so jet lagged I did not see the ear tip, and then when I did, I was still confused. But at least I figured it out before I did anything else.

And also, I had to give myself a pat on the back if I’m re-trapping cats here that are already TNR’d. TNR works!

Here he is, very clearly ear tipped. Yup, pretty obvious, right? Being jet lagged is worse than being drunk sometimes.

I let him out and then put the trap in the back yard.

Funny Face came immediately to check it out.

He did a complete inspection. Maybe now he’ll leave the front yard alone.

Jim cleaned and organized my TNR supplies in the garage last week while I was out of town on a work trip. I am a lucky, lucky woman to have him in my life.

First, he bought these shelves from Home Depot and set them all up.

The shelves fit most of the supplies needed for TNR, including:

– Tru-catch brand standard-sized traps, fat cat traps, and recovery traps

– various-sized pet carriers

– dog crates

– plywood pieces to elevate the traps off of the cement floor

– extra straw for winter housing insulation

And another set of shelves for:

– garbage bags and plastic sheets for easy clean up

– trap covers, sheets and blankets

– trap dividers/forks

– newspapers to line the traps

– soft plastic lids and bowls to feed the cats with in the traps

– zip ties to close the traps

– heated water bowls

– heated food bowls

– warming pads

– plastic and aluminum pan litter boxes

Hey Hay!

There’s more that needs to be cleaned out, including an awesome winter cat house that my friend Dorota donated, and these huge bales of straw donated by my friends Anna, Ellen and Alex. I’ll write more about these supplies later when I’m in town to distribute them.While Jim was cleaning out the garage, he even took the time to take some photos of the cats. Here’s Funny Face sharpening his claws on the sunflowers. 

It wasn’t enough for Funny Face to just supervise the Feral Flowers Garden in the back yard.

Today he decided to visit the front yard just as I was preparing to mow it. I wonder what he thought of this machine?

Apparently not much. He went straight for the feeding station underneath my front steps instead. I put it together a year ago to help trap any new cats. Funny Face has been a regular visitor ever since.

He was so engrossed in the food that he didn’t notice me at first.

Then he realized I was there. He seemed guilty. And embarrassed.

And then he refused to look at me and tried to pretend this wasn’t happening at all. 

I love Dice’s grizzled feral face and lopsided ears. I think he is fully healed now from his URI, stomatitis, and dental (10 tooth extractions!) because his face is clean – he used to have black residue from his eyes and whatever else. He’s gained weight, also, and this silly boy still prefers dry food.